title: getting a string instead of a DateTime object (Symfony 2.8 and date form fields)
body: <p>At the moment the value being returned is in this format:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var_dump($form-&gt;getData());
  
  object(DateTime)#515 (3) { ["date"]=&gt; string(19) "2016-08-03 00:00:00" ["timezone_type"]=&gt; int(1) ["timezone"]=&gt; string(18) "my-timezone-here" }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I just want a simple text/string value.</p>
  
  <p>This is the field definition</p>
  
  <pre><code>-&gt;add(
      "studentdob"
      , "date"
      , array(
          "attr" =&gt; array(
                  "class" =&gt; "normal"
                  , "placeholder" =&gt; "YYYY-DD-MM"
          )
          , "format" =&gt; "yyyy-dd-MM"
          , "required" =&gt; false
          , "widget" =&gt; "single_text"
      )
  )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I looked around the net and Symfony's reference pages and the only thing I can find that might be related is "data_class". But looking at examples I found in Symfony.com, I don't think this is what I want.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>