JavaScript and Dates

Let's have a look at a real-world example of how to interact with dates in JavaScript.

Setup

• Create a project directory and initialize your project using npm init -y.
• We will be working with a created index.js file.
• Use 'node index.js' to run your code.

---

Get present date

const todayDate = new Date();

---

Get month of the year, Year, Actual Day, Hour, Minute, milliseconds

const todayDate = new Date();
const today = todayDate.getDate();
const month = todayDate.getMonth() + 1; //JS months starts with index 0
const year = todayDate.getFullYear();
const day = todayDate.getDay();
const hour = todayDate.getHours();
const minute = todayDate.getMinutes();
const second = todayDate.getSeconds();
const millisecond = todayDate.getMilliseconds();

console.log('Milliseconds is :', millisecond);
console.log('Seconds is :', second);
console.log('Minutes is :', minute);
console.log('Hours is :', hour);
console.log('Month is: ', month);
console.log('Year is: ', year);
console.log('Today is: ', today);

Result:

---

Date formatting

const todayDate = new Date();
const date = `${todayDate.getFullYear()}-${
  todayDate.getMonth() + 1
}-${todayDate.getDate()}`;

const time = `${todayDate.getHours()}:${todayDate.getMinutes()}:${todayDate.getSeconds()}`;
let dateAndTime = `${date}T${time}Z`;

console.log(date);
console.log(time);
console.log(dateAndTime);

Result:

---

Get last year and last month

const date = new Date();
const lastMonth = new Date(date.setMonth(date.getMonth() - 1));

const dateYear = new Date();
const lastYear = new Date(dateYear.setFullYear(dateYear.getFullYear() - 1));
console.log({ lastMonth });
console.log({ lastYear });

---

Setting new date 1

let myDate1 = new Date('2022-04-01');
let myDate2 = new Date('2022-06-02');
console.log(myDate1);
console.log(myDate2);

Result:

Setting New Date 2

const date = new Date().toLocaleString('en-us', {
  month: 'long',
  day: 'numeric',
  year: 'numeric',
  hour: 'numeric',
  minute: 'numeric',
  second: 'numeric',
  hour12: false,
});
const customDate = new Date('2022-10-10').toLocaleString('en-us', {
  month: 'long',
  day: 'numeric',
  year: 'numeric',
  hour: 'numeric',
  minute: 'numeric',
  second: 'numeric',
  hour12: false,
});

console.log(date);
console.log(customDate);

Result:

---

Date Methods

let Lagos = new Date();
console.log({ toUTCString: Lagos.toUTCString() }); //Returns a date converted to UTC
console.log({ toLocaleString: Lagos.toLocaleString() }); //Converts a date to a string using the current locale
console.log({ toLocaleDateString: Lagos.toLocaleDateString() });
console.log({ toLocaleTimeString: Lagos.toLocaleTimeString() });
console.log({toLocaleString:Lagos.toLocaleString('en-US', { timeZone: 'Africa/Lagos' })});

Result:

---

Get previous date

var date = new Date();

// date; //# => Fri Apr 01 2011 11:14:50 GMT+0200 (CEST)
console.log(date.getDate()); //"6"

date.setDate(date.getDate() - 1);
console.log(date);

---

Discuss

Please share any JavaScript date methods, functions, or logic that developers would find useful in the comments area below.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.