JavaScript Dates

JavaScript Date Objects let us work with dates:

Year: Month: Day: Hours: Minutes: Seconds:

Examples

const d = new Date();

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JavaScript Date Output

By default, JavaScript will use the browser's time zone and display a date as a full text string:

Creating Date Objects

Date objects are created with the new Date() constructor.

There are 9 ways to create a new date object:

Example

new Date()

new Date(date string)

new Date(year,month)

new Date(year,month,day)

new Date(year,month,day,hours)

new Date(year,month,day,hours,minutes)

new Date(year,month,day,hours,minutes,seconds)

new Date(year,month,day,hours,minutes,seconds,ms)

new Date(milliseconds)

JavaScript new Date()

new Date() creates a date object with the current date and time:

Example

const d = new Date();

new Date(date string)

new Date(*date string*) creates a date object from a date string:

Examples

const d = new Date("October 13, 2014 11:13:00");

new Date(year, month, ...)

new Date(*year, month, ...*) creates a date object with a specified date and time.

7 numbers specify year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond (in that order):

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11, 24, 10, 33, 30, 0);

Specifying a month higher than 11, will not result in an error but add the overflow to the next year:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 15, 24, 10, 33, 30);

Specifying a day higher than max, will not result in an error but add the overflow to the next month:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 5, 35, 10, 33, 30);

Using 6, 4, 3, or 2 Numbers

6 numbers specify year, month, day, hour, minute, second:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11, 24, 10, 33, 30);

5 numbers specify year, month, day, hour, and minute:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11, 24, 10, 33);

4 numbers specify year, month, day, and hour:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11, 24, 10);

3 numbers specify year, month, and day:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11, 24);

2 numbers specify year and month:

Example

const d = new Date(2018, 11);

Example

const d = new Date(2018);

Previous Century

One and two digit years will be interpreted as 19xx:

Example

const d = new Date(99, 11, 24);

Example

const d = new Date(9, 11, 24);

new Date(milliseconds)

new Date(*milliseconds*) creates a new date object as milliseconds plus zero time:

Examples

const d = new Date(100000000000);

Date Methods

When a date object is created, a number of methods allow you to operate on it.

Date methods allow you to get and set the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond of date objects, using either local time or UTC (universal, or GMT) time.

Displaying Dates

JavaScript will (by default) output dates using the toString() method. This is a string representation of the date, including the time zone. The format is specified in the ECMAScript specification:

Example

When you display a date object in HTML, it is automatically converted to a string, with the toString() method.

Example

const d = new Date();

d.toString();

The toDateString() method converts a date to a more readable format:

Example

const d = new Date();

d.toDateString();

The toUTCString() method converts a date to a string using the UTC standard:

Example

const d = new Date();

d.toUTCString();

The toISOString() method converts a date to a string using the ISO standard:

Example

const d = new Date();

d.toISOString();