DevEquiv

    JavaScript date-fns format() to PHP date() Converter

    Paste a date-fns format() token string 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

    JavaScript (date-fns)
    yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
    PHP date()
    Y-m-d H:i:s

    Main limitation: date-fns's combined ordinal-day token `do` (renders as "5th") decomposes into PHP's `j` (day number) immediately followed by `S` (suffix) — both characters are required to reproduce the same output.

    How it differs

    • date-fns's combined ordinal-day token do (renders as "5th") decomposes into PHP's j (day number) immediately followed by S (suffix) — both characters are required to reproduce the same output.
    • date-fns quotes literal text in single quotes ('at'); PHP instead escapes each special character individually with a backslash (\a\t).
    • date-fns has no microseconds token, so there is nothing to map to PHP's u in this direction — PHP's extra precision token simply has no source equivalent to convert from.

    Examples

    Standard timestamp

    JavaScript (date-fns) yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
    PHP date() Y-m-d H:i:s

    A direct, exact mapping in both directions.

    Ordinal day, decomposed automatically

    JavaScript (date-fns) EEEE, do MMMM yyyy
    PHP date() l, jS F Y

    date-fns's combined `do` becomes PHP's `j` (day number) immediately followed by `S` (suffix) — the conversion is exact.

    Edge cases

    Edge case

    date-fns quarter tokens (Q, QQQ) and non-ISO week tokens (w) have no PHP equivalent and are dropped with a warning rather than approximated.

    Edge case

    A doubled single quote ('') in date-fns, representing a literal quote character, is unescaped correctly before being re-escaped for PHP.

    References

    • date-fns — format() — checked 2026-07-29
    • PHP Manual — date() — checked 2026-07-29

    Last verified 2026-07-29.