I installed date-fns as per the following instruction on

npm install date-fns --save

After that my package.json is updated with the following entry:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "date-fns": "^2.23.0"
  }
}

Then, I wrote the following code from / and it resulted in error:

import { format, formatDistance, formatRelative, subDays } from 'date-fns'

format(new Date(), "'Today is a' eeee")

Error:

import { format, formatDistance, formatRelative, subDays } from 'date-fns'
       ^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token {
    at Module._pile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:703:23)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:770:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:628:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:555:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:822:10)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:11

[Done] exited with code=1 in 0.143 seconds

node -v:

v12.2.0

I installed date-fns as per the following instruction on https://www.npmjs./package/date-fns

npm install date-fns --save

After that my package.json is updated with the following entry:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "date-fns": "^2.23.0"
  }
}

Then, I wrote the following code from https://date-fns/ and it resulted in error:

import { format, formatDistance, formatRelative, subDays } from 'date-fns'

format(new Date(), "'Today is a' eeee")

Error:

import { format, formatDistance, formatRelative, subDays } from 'date-fns'
       ^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token {
    at Module._pile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:703:23)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:770:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:628:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:555:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:822:10)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:11

[Done] exited with code=1 in 0.143 seconds

node -v:

v12.2.0

• javascript
• node.js
• date-fns

• I think you are probably facing a syntax errors. You are missing semicolons at the end of each line. The lines you copied are just abstract statements that can be used in code. – Salvino D'sa Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:39
• @Salvino - No, I have tried that as well but anyway, unlike Java, JavaScript does not require a semicolon at the end of the statement. – Arvind Kumar Avinash Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:41
• Can you also tell us, what is the mand you are using to execute your code? – Salvino D'sa Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:54
• I am clicking the run button in VSCode. I also tried node main.js on the terminal but encountered the same error. – Arvind Kumar Avinash Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:55
• can you cd to your project's root directory and run node main.js in your terminal? – Salvino D'sa Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:57

2 Answers 2

I managed to run it successfully by using require as shown below:

const fns = require('date-fns')

console.log(fns.format(new Date(), "'Today is a' eeee"))

Update:

I installed node v16.6.1 following the instructions in this answer and now I can run the following code successfully:

import { format } from 'date-fns';

console.log(format(new Date(), "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS"));

You are probably facing syntax errors, as you directly copy pasted the code from the documentation. Try importing the library as follows. It should work just fine.

import { format, formatDistance, formatRelative, subDays } from 'date-fns';

const mDate= format(new Date(2014, 1, 11), 'MM/dd/yyyy');
console.log(mDate);