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JavaScript Date Formats


JavaScript Date Input

There are generally 4 types of JavaScript date formats:

  • ISO Dates
  • Long Dates
  • Short Dates
  • Full Format

JavaScript Date Output

Independent of input format, JavaScript will (by default) output dates in full text string format:

Wed Mar 25 2015 01:00:00 GMT+0100 (W. Europe Standard Time)

JavaScript ISO Dates

ISO 8601 is the international standard for the representation of dates and times.

The ISO 8601 syntax (YYYY-MM-DD) is also the preferred JavaScript date format:

Example (Complete date)

var d = new Date("2015-03-25");
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It can be written without specifying the day (YYYY-MM):

Example (Year and month)

var d = new Date("2015-03");
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It can be written without month and day (YYYY):

Example (Only year)

var d = new Date("2015");
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It can be written with added hours, minutes, and seconds (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS):

Example (Complete date plus hours, minutes, and seconds)

var d = new Date("2015-03-25T12:00:00");
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The T in the date string, between the date and time, indicates UTC time.

Note UTC (Universal Time Coordinated)  is the same as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

JavaScript Long Dates.

Long dates are most often written with a "MMM DD YYYY" syntax like this:

Example

var d = new Date("Mar 25 2015");
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Month and day can be in any order:

Example

var d = new Date("25 Mar 2015");
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And, month can be written in full (January), or abbreviated (Jan):

Example

var d = new Date("January 25 2015");
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Example

var d = new Date("Jan 25 2015");
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Commas are ignored. Names are case insensitive:

Example

var d = new Date("JANUARY, 25, 2015");
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JavaScript Short Dates.

Short dates are most often written with an "MM/DD/YYYY" syntax like this:

Example

var d = new Date("03/25/2015");
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JavaScript will also accept "YYYY/MM/DD":

Example

var d = new Date("2015/03/25");
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Note Month is written before day in all short date and ISO date formats.

Full Date Format

JavaScript will accept date strings in "full JavaScript format":

Example

var d = new Date("Wed Mar 25 2015 09:56:24 GMT+0100 (W. Europe Standard Time)");
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JavaScript will ignore errors both in the day name and in the time parentheses:

Example

var d = new Date("Fri Mar 25 2015 09:56:24 GMT+0100 (Tokyo Time)");
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Time Zones

JavaScript accepts these time zones:

Time Zone Description
UTC Coordinated Universal Time
GMT Greenwich Mean Time
EDT (US) Eastern Daylight Time
CDT (US) Central Daylight Time
MDT (US) Mountain Daylight Time
PDT (US) Pacific Daylight Time
EST (US) Eastern Standard Time
CST (US) Central Standard Time
MST (US) Mountain Standard Time
PST (US) Pacific Standard Time

When setting a date, without specifying the time zone, JavaScript will use the browser's time zone.

When getting a date, without specifying the time zone, the result is converted to the browser's time zone.

In other words: If a date/time is created in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), the date/time will be converted to CDT (Central US Daylight Time) if a user browses from central US.