Converting JSON date string to a correct Date object

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Help parsing ISO 8601 date in Javascript

I think this should be very simple but turned out amazingly tedious.

From WEB API, I received selected object via ajax, and one of its properties is InspectionDate datetime string such as 2012-05-14T00:00:00

In javascript, I use following code to have correct date object

selected.JsInspectionDate = new Date(selected.InspectionDate);

But JsInspectionDate shows

2012/05/14 00:00 in firefox, 
2012/05/13 20:00 in chrome and 
NAN in IE9

for 2012-05-14T00:00:00.

Could someone tell me why this problem occurs? And how to fix this issue? I just want to show as in firefox for all browsers.

Looks like a timezone problem. 4 hours difference, do you live on the East Coast? — Mike Robinson, Aug 22 '12 at 17:25
Try `new Date(selected.InspectionDate + "Z")`. This fixes the timezone. But maybe this won't work on IE. — nalply, Aug 22 '12 at 17:30
@nalply I am not sure I follow. I've already read those Q&A but why browsers produce different value? Do you mean that if I use datejs, all browsers will result in same date value? — Tae-Sung Shin, Aug 22 '12 at 17:31
@AshirvadSingh yes, ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API gives date in a string format. — Tae-Sung Shin, Aug 22 '12 at 17:33
datejs will help you, yes. The `+ "Z"` hack fixes the timezone (sets it to UTC), but if IE does not understand ISO dates, all is lost. — nalply, Aug 22 '12 at 17:33

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 22 '12 at 17:42

2

Do this:

new Date(selected.InspectionDate + "Z")

Rationale: Your dates are in ISO 8601 form. Timezone designators like "Z", a very short one for UTC, work.

Note! IE might not understand ISO 8601 dates. All bets are off. In this case, better use datejs.

answered Aug 22 '12 at 17:42

nalply

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Yeah datejs was way to go. Everything is in harmony now. To be honest, I didn't know datejs was requirement. Thanks for your answer. – Tae-Sung Shin Aug 22 '12 at 17:49

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 22 '12 at 19:12

Update:

First as one suggested, I tried following after referencing date.js.

selected.JsInspectionDate = Date.parse(selected.InspectionDate);

It seemed like working but later I found it was not enough since the JSON date string can have a format of 2012-05-14T00:00:00.0539 which date.js can't process either.

So my solution was

function dateParse(str) {
    var arr = str.split('.');
    return Date.parse(arr[0]);
}
...
selected.JsInspectionDate = dateParse(selected.InspectionDate);

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 22 '12 at 17:55

0

FIDDLE

var selectedDate='2012-05-14T00:00:00';
var formatttedDate=new Date(selectedDate.substr(0,selectedDate.indexOf('T')));

document.write(formatttedDate.getFullYear()+'/'+(formatttedDate.getMonth()<10?'0'+formatttedDate.getMonth():formatttedDate.getMonth())+'/'+formatttedDate.getDay());

answered Aug 22 '12 at 17:55

Ashirvad

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This discards the time part. And why reinvent the wheel? – nalply Aug 22 '12 at 17:59

Converting JSON date string to a correct Date object

3 Answers3