- var_dump: documentation ( source)
- date: documentation ( source)
- strtotime: documentation ( source)
<?php
$updateDate = '2015-04-12';
$date1 = new DateTime(date('Y-m-d', strtotime($updateDate)));
$date2 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', $updateDate);
var_dump($date1 == $date2);