Get date format like "Y-m-d H:i:s" from a php date

Does someone know a way to get a string from a date that contains the format of the date?

<?php
    $date = date ("2009-10-16 21:30:45");

    // smething like this?
    print date_format ($date);
?>

I ask this because I'd like to optimize this function I've written, usually to get the date with a different timezone from a server, without doing particular things

<?php
function get_timezone_offset ($timezone, $date = null, $format = null, $offset_timezone = null) {
    if ($date == null) $date = date ($format);
    if ($offset_timezone == null) $offset_timezone = date_default_timezone_get ();
    if ($format == null) $format = "Y-m-d H:i:s";
    // I'd like to find a way that can avoid me to write $format and get it directly from the date i pass, but I don't know a particular method can do it
    // if ($format == null) $format = date_format ($date);

    $date_time = new DateTime ($date, new DateTimeZone ($offset_timezone));
    $date_time->setTimeZone (new DateTimeZone ($timezone));
    return $date_time->format ($format);
}

print get_timezone_offset ("Europe/Rome");
print get_timezone_offset ("Europe/Rome", date ("Y-m-d H:i:s"));
print get_timezone_offset ("Europe/Rome", date ("Y-m-d H:i:s"), "Y-m-d H:i:s");
print get_timezone_offset ("Europe/Rome", "2009-10-16 21:30:45", "Y-m-d H:i:s", "America/New_York");
?>

I hope to avoid regular expressions for performance reasons, but I don't know if this is possible