[javascript] Convert string to datetime

How to convert string like '01-01-1970 00:03:44' to datetime?

By using Date.parse() you get the unix timestamp.

date = new Date( Date.parse("05/01/2020") )
//Fri May 01 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Shouldn't this also work for Rails?

"30/Nov/2009 16:29:30 +0100".to_datetime

I used Time.parse("02/07/1988"), like some of the other posters.

An interesting gotcha was that Time was loaded by default when I opened up IRB, but Time.parse was not defined. I had to require 'time' to get it to work.

That's with Ruby 2.2.

in Ruby 1.8, the ParseDate module will convert this and many other date/time formats. However, it does not deal gracefully with the colon between the year and the hour. Assuming that colon is a typo and is actually a space, then:

#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

require 'parsedate'

s = "30/Nov/2009 16:29:30 +0100"
p Time.mktime(*ParseDate.parsedate(s))    # =>  Mon Nov 30 16:29:30 -0700 2009

well, thought I should mention a solution I came across through some trying. Discovered whilst fixing a defect of someone comparing dates as strings.

new Date(Date.parse('01-01-1970 01:03:44'))

You could use the moment.js library.

Then simply:

var stringDate = '01-01-1970 00:03:44';
var momentDateObj = moment(stringDate);

Checkout their api also, helps with formatting, adding, subtracting (days, months, years, other moment objects).

I hope this helps.

Rhys

DateTime.strptime allows you to specify the format and convert a String to a DateTime.

I have had success with:

require 'time'
t = Time.parse(some_string)

Keep it simple with new Date(string). This should do it...

const s = '01-01-1970 00:03:44';
const d = new Date(s);
console.log(d); // ---> Thu Jan 01 1970 00:03:44 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date

EDIT: "Code Different" left a valuable comment that MDN no longer recommends using Date as a constructor like this due to browser differences. While the code above works fine in Chrome (v87.0.x) and Edge (v87.0.x), it gives an "Invalid Date" error in Firefox (v84.0.2).

One way to work around this is to make sure your string is in the more universal format of YYYY-MM-DD (obligatory xkcd), e.g., const s = '1970-01-01 00:03:44';, which seems to work in the three major browsers, but this doesn't exactly answer the original question.

For chinese Rails developers:

DateTime.strptime('2012-12-09 00:01:36', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
=> Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:01:36 +0000

This will convert the string in date to datetime, if using Rails:

"05/05/2012".to_time

Doc Reference: https://apidock.com/rails/String/to_time

formatDateTime(sDate,FormatType) {
    var lDate = new Date(sDate)

    var month=new Array(12);
    month[0]="January";
    month[1]="February";
    month[2]="March";
    month[3]="April";
    month[4]="May";
    month[5]="June";
    month[6]="July";
    month[7]="August";
    month[8]="September";
    month[9]="October";
    month[10]="November";
    month[11]="December";

    var weekday=new Array(7);
    weekday[0]="Sunday";
    weekday[1]="Monday";
    weekday[2]="Tuesday";
    weekday[3]="Wednesday";
    weekday[4]="Thursday";
    weekday[5]="Friday";
    weekday[6]="Saturday";

    var hh = lDate.getHours() < 10 ? '0' + 
        lDate.getHours() : lDate.getHours();
    var mi = lDate.getMinutes() < 10 ? '0' + 
        lDate.getMinutes() : lDate.getMinutes();
    var ss = lDate.getSeconds() < 10 ? '0' + 
        lDate.getSeconds() : lDate.getSeconds();

    var d = lDate.getDate();
    var dd = d < 10 ? '0' + d : d;
    var yyyy = lDate.getFullYear();
    var mon = eval(lDate.getMonth()+1);
    var mm = (mon<10?'0'+mon:mon);
    var monthName=month[lDate.getMonth()];
    var weekdayName=weekday[lDate.getDay()];

    if(FormatType==1) {
       return mm+'/'+dd+'/'+yyyy+' '+hh+':'+mi;
    } else if(FormatType==2) {
       return weekdayName+', '+monthName+' '+ 
            dd +', ' + yyyy;
    } else if(FormatType==3) {
       return mm+'/'+dd+'/'+yyyy; 
    } else if(FormatType==4) {
       var dd1 = lDate.getDate();    
       return dd1+'-'+Left(monthName,3)+'-'+yyyy;    
    } else if(FormatType==5) {
        return mm+'/'+dd+'/'+yyyy+' '+hh+':'+mi+':'+ss;
    } else if(FormatType == 6) {
        return mon + '/' + d + '/' + yyyy + ' ' + 
            hh + ':' + mi + ':' + ss;
    } else if(FormatType == 7) {
        return  dd + '-' + monthName.substring(0,3) + 
            '-' + yyyy + ' ' + hh + ':' + mi + ':' + ss;
    }
}

You can parse a date time string with a given timezone as well:

zone = "Pacific Time (US & Canada)"
ActiveSupport::TimeZone[zone].parse("2020-05-24 18:45:00")
=> Sun, 24 May 2020 18:45:00 PDT -07:00

https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/parse

var unixTimeZero = Date.parse('01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT');
var javaScriptRelease = Date.parse('04 Dec 1995 00:12:00 GMT');

console.log(unixTimeZero);
// expected output: 0

console.log(javaScriptRelease);
// expected output: 818035920000

For this format (supposed datepart has the format dd-mm-yyyy) in plain javascript:

var dt  = '01-01-1970 00:03:44'.split(/\-|\s/)_x000D_
    dat = new Date(dt.slice(0,3).reverse().join('/')+' '+dt[3]);

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_parse.asp

    <script type="text/javascript">
        var d = Date.parse("Jul 8, 2005");
        document.write(d);<br>
    </script>