Date Methods in JavaScript

The Date object provides a variety of methods for working with dates. Let’s look at some of the most useful ones.

Creation Methods

const currentDate = new Date();

const milliseconds = Date.now();
const parsedDate = Date.parse("2024-08-14T12:00:00Z");
const utcDate = new Date(Date.UTC(2024, 7, 14, 12, 0, 0));

Getting Date Components

For example,

const date = new Date();
console.log(date.getFullYear()); // Current year
console.log(date.getMonth());    // Current month (0-11)
console.log(date.getDate());     // Day of the month
console.log(date.getDay());      // Day of the week
console.log(date.getHours());    // Hour
console.log(date.getMinutes());  // Minutes
console.log(date.getSeconds());  // Seconds

Getting Components in UTC

These are the same as the previous ones but return the date in UTC.

Setting Components

For example,

const date = new Date();

console.log(date.getFullYear());    // E.g: 2024
console.log(date.getMonth());       // E.g: 7 (August, months start at 0)
console.log(date.getDate());        // E.g: 14 (Day of the month)
console.log(date.getDay());         // E.g: 3 (Wednesday, 0 = Sunday)
console.log(date.getHours());       // E.g: 12 (Hour)
console.log(date.getMinutes());     // E.g: 30 (Minutes)
console.log(date.getSeconds());     // E.g: 45 (Seconds)
console.log(date.getMilliseconds());// E.g: 500 (Milliseconds)
console.log(date.getTime());        // Milliseconds since 1970
console.log(date.getTimezoneOffset()); // E.g: -120 (Difference in minutes from UTC)

UTC Setting Methods

Formatting Methods

For example,

const date = new Date();

console.log(date.toDateString());   // "Mon Aug 14 2024"
console.log(date.toTimeString());    // "12:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)"

console.log(date.toISOString());     // "2024-08-14T12:00:00.000Z"
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString()); // "14/8/2024" (depending on local settings)