title: Using PHP strftime() using date() format string
body: <p>I'm maintaining PHP code which seems to mess up date/time handling rather badly. In particular this application does not work well in other locales.</p>
  
  <p>One of the issues is the use of the non-localizable <code>date()</code> function instead of the <code>strftime()</code> function. It is used several layers deep inside function which are literally used thousands of times with many different format strings all over the place.</p>
  
  <p>Replacing <code>date()</code> with <code>strftime()</code> would cost way too much time. Rather I'm looking into ways to have <code>strftime()</code> handle the same format strings as <code>date()</code>, but can't find anything.  Is there any known solution to use <code>strftime()</code> with <code>date()</code> format strings?</p>