The date object is used to handle dates and time in JavaScript.
The object can be instantiated in four ways:
let date = new Date()
let date = new Date(milliseconds)
let date = new Date(dateString)
let date = new Date(year, month, day, hrs, min, sec, milliseconds)
new Date()
: Creates a date object set to the current date and time.new Date(milliseconds)
: Takes an integer as an argument - which represents milliseconds - and sets the date object to the given number of milliseconds after 1/1/1970. For example, new date(7000)
would set the object to 7 seconds after 1/1/1970.new Date(dateString)
: Takes a string representation of a date, in a format accepted by the date.parse()
method, as an argument.new Date(year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds)
: Takes arguments in the given order, each specifying a part of the date.let date1 = new Date()console.log("The date is: ", date1)let date2 = new Date(5000)console.log("The date is: ", date2)let date3 = new Date("2019/8/25")console.log("The date is: ", date3)let date4 = new Date(2019, 5, 10, 6, 40, 21, 2)console.log("The date is: ", date4)
Once a date object is instantiated, there are several methods that can be used with it. Some are get methods - which enable you to retrieve specific information from a date, while orders are set methods, which let you edit the information in a date object.
Let’s see some of the important ones in action:
getDay()
: Returns an integer which represents the day - 0 means Monday, 1 means Tuesday and so on.let date = new Date()console.log("The day is: ", date.getDay())
getFullYear()
: Returns an integer that represents the year in the date object.let date = new Date()console.log("The year is: ", date.getFullYear())
getHours()
: Returns an integer that represents the hours in the date object.let date = new Date()console.log("The hours are: ", date.getHours())
getMinutes()
: Returns an integer representing minutes in the date object.let date = new Date()console.log("The minutes are: ", date.getMinutes())
setFullYear(value)
: Sets the current year in the date to value
.Note: Do not use the deprecated
setYear()
anymore.
let date = new Date()date.setFullYear(2015)console.log("The edited date with year 2015:", date)
setMonth(value)
: Takes an integer as an argument which represents the month and changes the month in the date object to value
.Other methods such as
setDay(value)
, setHours(value)
, setMinutes(value)
, and setSeconds(value)
are used similarly.
Note: Numbering for
setMonth()
andsetDay()
starts from 0, so 0 means January, 1 means February and so on…
let date = new Date()date.setMonth(1) // Remember, 1 means February.console.log("The edited date with February is: ", date)