DevEquiv

    Java DateTimeFormatter to PHP date() Converter

    Paste a java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter pattern to get the equivalent PHP date() format string.

    Token-by-token mapping

    Shown one token at a time — some dialects combine two adjacent tokens (like a day number plus an ordinal suffix) into a single result above, which can differ slightly from this per-token view.

    Close equivalent

    Java DateTimeFormatter
    yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss
    PHP date()
    Y-m-d\TH:i:s

    Main limitation: Java's letter-repetition patterns collapse into PHP's single-character tokens — e.g. Java's `yyyy` becomes PHP's `Y`, and `EEEE` becomes `l`.

    How it differs

    • Java's letter-repetition patterns collapse into PHP's single-character tokens — e.g. Java's yyyy becomes PHP's Y, and EEEE becomes l.
    • Java's single-quoted literal text ('T') is unwrapped to plain text, then re-escaped for PHP only if it collides with a PHP format character (as T does, for timezone abbreviation).
    • Java's SSSSSS (6-digit fraction) maps to PHP's u; Java's SSS (3-digit) maps to PHP's v — both are supported here, matching the PHP-to-Java direction.

    Examples

    ISO-8601 timestamp

    Java DateTimeFormatter yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss
    PHP date() Y-m-d\TH:i:s

    The quoted literal `'T'` becomes an escaped `\T` in PHP, since `T` is a PHP format character.

    Long-form date

    Java DateTimeFormatter EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy
    PHP date() l, F j, Y

    Unlike Python's strftime, PHP has a non-padded day token (`j`), so this conversion is fully exact.

    Edge cases

    Edge case

    Java's non-padded d (day without leading zero) converts cleanly to PHP's j — unlike the Java-to-Python direction, PHP does have a non-padded day token.

    Edge case

    Java's locale-dependent e/c (numeric weekday) and era (G) patterns have no PHP equivalent and are dropped with a warning rather than mapped to PHP's ISO-only N.

    References

    • Java SE docs — DateTimeFormatter (v21) — checked 2026-07-29
    • PHP Manual — date() — checked 2026-07-29

    Last verified 2026-07-29.