convert custom date string to date object

Question

How can I convert a string representation of a date to a real javascript date object?

the date has the following format

E MMM dd HH:mm:ss Z yyyy

e.g.

Sat Jun 30 00:00:00 CEST 2012

Thanks in advance

EDIT: My working solution is based on the accepted answer. To get it work in IE8, you have to replace the month part (e.g. Jun) with the months number (e.g. 5 for June, because January is 0)

Possible duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5510580/convert-string-to-datetime — Sami N, Mar 19 '13 at 08:02
i think you would need to somehow get the timezone offset and set it manually — kennypu, Mar 19 '13 at 08:06
use a database (precompiled hashmap, to be exact) or rely on the constructor. One form allows for a timezone string, IIRC — John Dvorak, Mar 19 '13 at 08:07
See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/parse — John Dvorak, Mar 19 '13 at 08:09
possible duplicate : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/476105/how-can-i-convert-string-to-datetime-with-format-specification-in-javascript — Istiaque Ahmed, Mar 19 '13 at 08:16

drunken bot · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-19T08:19:30.437

6

Your date string can mostly be parsed as is but CEST isn't a valid time zone in ISO 8601, so you'll have to manually replace it with +0200.

A simple solution thus might be :

var str = "Sat Jun 30 00:00:00 CEST 2012";
str = str.replace(/CEST/, '+0200');
var date = new Date(str);

If you want to support other time zones defined by their names, you'll have to find their possible values and the relevant offset. You can register them in a map :

var replacements = {
    "ACDT": "+1030",
    "CEST": "+0200",
    ... 
};
for (var key in replacements) str = str.replace(key, replacements[key]);
var date = new Date(str);

This might be a good list of time zone abbreviation.

edited Mar 19 '13 at 08:19

answered Mar 19 '13 at 08:11

drunken bot

486
3
8

Tested in Firefox? I remember firefox being quite strict in which dates it accepts. It does work in Chrome, though. – John Dvorak Mar 19 '13 at 08:13
1

Tested in Firefox and Chrome. – drunken bot Mar 19 '13 at 08:15
Can you test in IE too, or should I? – John Dvorak Mar 19 '13 at 08:16
There might be a problem with the locale, too. "Jun" is hardly an universal notation. – drunken bot Mar 19 '13 at 08:24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 19 '13 at 08:21

You can use following code to convert string into datetime:

var sDate = "01/09/2013 01:10:59";
 var dateArray = sDate.split('/');
 var day = dateArray[1];

 // Attention! JavaScript consider months in the range 0 - 11
 var month = dateArray[0] - 1;
 var year = dateArray[2].split(' ')[0];
 var hour = (dateArray[2].split(' ')[1]).split(':')[0];
 var minute = (dateArray[2].split(' ')[1]).split(':')[1];
 var objDt = new Date(year, month, day, hour, minute);
 alert(objDt);

convert custom date string to date object

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