[javascript] Format date with Moment.js

I have a string in this format:

var testDate = "Fri Apr 12 2013 19:08:55 GMT-0500 (CDT)"

I would like to use Moment.js get it in this format mm/dd/yyyy : 04/12/2013 for display.

I tried to do it using this method,

moment(testDate,'mm/dd/yyyy');

Which errors and says there is no such method called replace? Am I approaching this in the wrong way?

Edit

I should also mention that I am using a pre-packaged version of Moment.js, packaged for Meteor.js

Object [object Date] has no method 'replace' : The Exact error from the console

Stack Trace:

 at makeDateFromStringAndFormat (http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/moment/lib/moment/moment.js?b4e3ac4a3d0794023a4410e7941c3e179398b5b0:539:29)
    at moment (http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/moment/lib/moment/moment.js?b4e3ac4a3d0794023a4410e7941c3e179398b5b0:652:24)
    at populateProfileForEdit (http://127.0.0.1:3000/client/views/home/administration/directory/profiles/profiles.js?acfff908a6a099f37312f62892a22b40f82e5e0f:147:25)
    at Object.Template.profile_personal.rendered (http://127.0.0.1:3000/client/views/home/administration/directory/profiles/profiles.js?acfff908a6a099f37312f62892a22b40f82e5e0f:130:13)
    at Spark.createLandmark.rendered (http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/templating/deftemplate.js?b622653d121262e50a80be772bf5b1e55ab33881:126:42)
    at http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/spark/spark.js?45c746f38023ceb80745f4b4280457e15f058bbc:384:32
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at Function._.each._.forEach (http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/underscore/underscore.js?867d3653d53e9c7a171483edbcad9670e12288c7:79:11)
    at http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/spark/spark.js?45c746f38023ceb80745f4b4280457e15f058bbc:382:7
    at _.extend.flush (http://127.0.0.1:3000/packages/deps/deps.js?9642a93ae1f8ffa8eb1c2475b198c764f183d693:231:11) 

Include moment.js and using the below code you can format your date

var formatDate= 1399919400000;

var responseDate = moment(formatDate).format('DD/MM/YYYY');

My output is "13/05/2014"

For fromating output date use format. Second moment argument is for parsing - however if you omit it then you testDate will cause deprecation warning

Deprecation warning: value provided is not in a recognized RFC2822 or ISO format...

var testDate= "Fri Apr 12 2013 19:08:55 GMT-0500 (CDT)"_x000D_
_x000D_
let s= moment(testDate).format('MM/DD/YYYY');_x000D_
_x000D_
msg.innerText= s;

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.24.0/moment.min.js"></script>_x000D_
_x000D_
<div id="msg"></div>

to omit this warning you should provide parsing format

var testDate= "Fri Apr 12 2013 19:08:55 GMT-0500 (CDT)"_x000D_
_x000D_
let s= moment(testDate, 'ddd MMM D YYYY HH:mm:ss ZZ').format('MM/DD/YYYY');_x000D_
_x000D_
console.log(s);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.24.0/moment.min.js"></script>

moment().format();                                // "2019-08-12T17:52:17-05:00" (ISO 8601, no fractional seconds)
moment().format("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY, h:mm:ss a"); // "Monday, August 12th 2019, 5:52:00 pm"
moment().format("ddd, hA");                       // "Mon, 5PM"

May be this helps some one who are looking for multiple date formats one after the other by willingly or unexpectedly. Please find the code: I am using moment.js format function on a current date as (today is 29-06-2020) var startDate = moment(new Date()).format('MM/DD/YY'); Result: 06/28/20

what happening is it retains only the year part :20 as "06/28/20", after If I run the statement : new Date(startDate) The result is "Mon Jun 28 1920 00:00:00 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)",

Then, when I use another format on "06/28/20": startDate = moment(startDate ).format('MM-DD-YYYY'); Result: 06-28-1920, in google chrome and firefox browsers it gives correct date on second attempt as: 06-28-2020. But in IE it is having issues, from this I understood we can apply one dateformat on the given date, If we want second date format, it should be apply on the fresh date not on the first date format result. And also observe that for first time applying 'MM-DD-YYYY' and next 'MM-DD-YY' is working in IE. For clear understanding please find my question in the link: Date went wrong when using Momentjs date format in IE 11

You Probably Don't Need Moment.js Anymore

Moment is great time manipulation library but it's considered as a legacy project, and the team is recommending to use other libraries.

date-fns is one of the best lightweight libraries, it's modular, so you can pick the functions you need and reduce bundle size (issue & statement).

Another common argument against using Moment in modern applications is its size. Moment doesn't work well with modern "tree shaking" algorithms, so it tends to increase the size of web application bundles.

import { format } from 'date-fns' // 21K (gzipped: 5.8K)
import moment from 'moment' // 292.3K (gzipped: 71.6K)

Format date with date-fns:

// moment.js
moment().format('MM/DD/YYYY');
// => "12/18/2020"

// date-fns
import { format } from 'date-fns'
format(new Date(), 'MM/dd/yyyy');
// => "12/18/2020"

More on cheat sheet with the list of functions which you can use to replace moment.js: You-Dont-Need-Momentjs