Applying HTML tags to parts of PHP file

[sparklywater]

I am trying to change the font-colour of part of a query in php, by using a CSS class in html.

I want the following code to have the css class 'time' applied to it.

'.vbdate($vbulletin->options['timeformat'], $dateline);

I have edited the above php code in this way:

echo '<span class=\"time\">' '.vbdate($vbulletin->options['timeformat'], $dateline) '</span>' ;

This code however does not work. Does anyone here know how I can correctly apply the 'time' class to a piece of code in php?