What is date-fns?
The date-fns npm package provides a comprehensive, yet simple and consistent toolset for manipulating JavaScript dates in a browser & Node.js. It offers a variety of functions to parse, validate, manipulate, and format dates.
What are date-fns's main functionalities?
Parsing Dates
Parse strings in ISO format to JavaScript Date objects.
const parseISO = require('date-fns/parseISO');
const result = parseISO('2023-04-12');
Formatting Dates
Format Date objects into strings with a given format.
const format = require('date-fns/format');
const result = format(new Date(2023, 3, 12), 'yyyy-MM-dd');
Comparing Dates
Compare two dates to determine if one comes before the other.
const isBefore = require('date-fns/isBefore');
const result = isBefore(new Date(2023, 3, 12), new Date(2023, 3, 13));
Manipulating Dates
Perform date calculations such as adding or subtracting time spans.
const addDays = require('date-fns/addDays');
const result = addDays(new Date(2023, 3, 12), 10);
Validating Dates
Check if a date is valid.
const isValid = require('date-fns/isValid');
const result = isValid(new Date('2023-04-12'));
Other packages similar to date-fns
moment
Moment.js is a legacy project, now in maintenance mode, which provides similar functionalities for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates. It's more object-oriented and mutable compared to the functional and immutable design of date-fns.
dayjs
Day.js is a lightweight date library that offers a similar API to Moment.js but with a smaller footprint. It is immutable and chainable, like date-fns, but with a different plugin system for extending functionality.
luxon
Luxon is a powerful, modern, and chainable library for working with dates and times. It offers a rich set of features for parsing, formatting, manipulating, and querying dates. It's built on the Intl API and provides time zone support out of the box, which is more comprehensive than date-fns's approach to time zones.
date-fns provides the most comprehensive, yet simple and consistent toolset
for manipulating JavaScript dates in a browser & Node.js.
It's like Lodash for dates
- It has 200+ functions for all occasions.
- Modular: Pick what you need. Works with webpack, Browserify, or Rollup and also supports tree-shaking.
- Native dates: Uses existing native type. It doesn't extend core objects for safety's sake.
- Immutable & Pure: Built using pure functions and always returns a new date instance.
- TypeScript & Flow: Supports both Flow and TypeScript
- I18n: Dozens of locales. Include only what you need.
- and many more benefits
import { compareAsc, format } from 'date-fns'
format(new Date(2014, 1, 11), 'yyyy-MM-dd')
const dates = [
new Date(1995, 6, 2),
new Date(1987, 1, 11),
new Date(1989, 6, 10),
]
dates.sort(compareAsc)
The library is available as an npm package.
To install the package run:
npm install date-fns --save
yarn add date-fns
Docs
See date-fns.org for more details, API,
and other docs.
License
MIT © Sasha Koss