Parsing a string to a date in JavaScript

Question

How can I convert a string to a Date object in JavaScript?

var st = "date in some format" var dt = new Date(); var dt_st = // st in Date format, same as dt.

Answer 1

The best string format for string parsing is the date ISO format together with the JavaScript Date object constructor.

Examples of ISO format: YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.

But however, just using the "ISO format" doesn't work reliably by itself. String are sometimes parsed as UTC and sometimes as localtime. The best practice should always be to store dates as UTC and make computations as UTC.

To parse a date as UTC, append a Z - e.g.: new Date('2011-04-11T10:20:30Z').

To display a date in UTC, use .toUTCString(),

To display a date in the user's local time, use .toString().