I’m currently developing a Symfony-based REST API application, where I encounter a specific requirement related to the formatting of date values returned from entity fields. Within my entity, I have a field named birthdate, defined as @ORMColumn(type="date"). When this field is included in API responses, it provides both the date and time components, which is not aligned with the project’s specifications. Instead, I need the API response to exclusively provide the date part without any time information.

Below is a condensed version of the relevant section of the entity, including the existing getBirthdate() method:

/**
 * @var DateTime|null
 *
 * @ORMColumn(name="birthdate", type="date", nullable=true)
 */
private $birthdate;

// Existing getBirthdate() method
public function getBirthdate(): ?DateTimeInterface
{
    return $this->birthdate;
}

// Additional properties and methods...

While I’ve considered utilizing DateTimeImmutable objects to ensure immutability, I’m uncertain about the precise implementation within the getBirthdate() method. Therefore, I seek guidance on how to modify this method effectively to exclusively return the date part without any time components, utilizing DateTimeImmutable.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in navigating this challenge effectively.