date conversion/extraction issues

This is my code and the output is right after that... $PDate = $row['PDate']; //row is tapping into ms-sql date field. //and the ms-sql data field has a value like this for the PDate; //07/12/2001 $PDate = $PDate->date; echo "<h1>[", $PDate , "]</h1>"; echo "<h1>[", var_dump($row['PDate']) , "]</h1>"; echo "<h1>[", serialize($row['PDate']) , "]</h1><hr>"; the output is as follows. And my question is embedded in the output. [] ??? WHY IS THIS BLANK? WHY IS THIS NOT 2001-12-07 00:00:00? [object(DateTime)#3 (3) { ["date"]=> string(19) "2001-12-07 00:00:00" ["timezone_type"]=> int(3) ["timezone"]=> string(19) "America/Los_Angeles" } ] [O:8:"DateTime":3:{s:4:"date";s:19:"2001-12-07 00:00:00";s:13:"timezone_type";i:3;s:8:"timezone";s:19:"America/Los_Angeles";}] if I were to directly insert the $row['date'] ms-sql value into mysq, I get this error; Catchable fatal error: Object of class DateTime could not be converted to string in ....sql.php on line 379