[texhax] Superscript ordinal indicators in dates?

[Joel C. Salomon]

2009/6/4 E. Krishnan <ekmath at asianetindia.com>:
> On Thu, 4 Jun 2009, Joel C. Salomon wrote:
>> How can I get the date in my LaTeX article to display the ordinal
>> indicator in superscript?  E.g., July 4<sup>th</sup>, 1776
>
> Please try
>
>  \def\mydate{\ifcase\day\or
>   1$^{\hbox{st}}$\or 2$^{\hbox{nd}}$\or 3$^{\hbox{rd}}$\or
<snip>
>   31$^{\hbox{st}}$\fi~\ifcase\month\or
>   January\or February\or March\or April\or May\or June\or
>   July\or August\or September\or October\or November\or
>   December\fi,\space \number\year}

I moved the \ifcase\month to the front and replaced the $^{hbox{—}}$
with \textsuperscript{—}, then added
	\date{\mydate}
—that works OK.

So I followed Uwe & Donald's advice, and kept an eye out for how the
packages format the raised ordinals. Since the nth package uses
\textsuperscript rather than playing math games, I thought to say:
	\usepackage[super]{nth}
	\def\mydate{\ifcase\month\or
		January\or February\or March\or April\or May\or June\or July\or August\or
		September\or October\or November\or December\fi~\nth{day},\space
\number\year}
	\date{\mydate}
But that’s not working—I get a "missing number" from \maketitle.  What
am I doing wrong?

Also, I’d like to hook in into LaTeX date formatting so that the
\today command will be formatted as I’d prefer.

—Joel