Date time fuction

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
Hello,
i read have read http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-gui...elper.html & i am using now() to get current date/time.i have assigned it to a variable. i want to convert it to human readable format while reading or storing whichever possible to do.
can anybody tell me how to do it?
Thanks in advance.