toLocaleString not getting the language I set on node.js

Question

Im on node.js editing a server side file and I want to get the date in mexican spanish format like this:

const bdate = new Date(1980, 4-1, 3);
const birthdate = bdate.toLocaleString('es-MX', { month: 'short', year : 'numeric', day : 'numeric' });
console.log(birthdate);

but this produces Apr 3, 1980 whereas it should be: 3-abr-1980

This code works fine on a client side file but not here. What is wrong here?

Thanks.

Im on firefox but I have the same problem on chrome as well. — Cain Nuke, Sep 22 '21 at 05:49
On the snippet it works. Maybe because im on node.js server side? — Cain Nuke, Sep 22 '21 at 05:55
Seems like it is, node.js is the culprit. Im closing this question and opening a new one. — Cain Nuke, Sep 22 '21 at 05:58
Does this answer your question? [Using .toLocaleString() in Node.js](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23199909/using-tolocalestring-in-node-js) — Phil, Sep 22 '21 at 06:04
I did have a look at that but its very old. Maybe there is a new alternative out there? — Cain Nuke, Sep 22 '21 at 06:06

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 22 '21 at 04:28

You can achieve the date format you want with just "es" language instead of "es-MX" and then just substitute the spaces for -. Another solution would be based on this answer, you can achieve the same result with Intl.DateTimeFormat

I provided some examples here:

const bdate = new Date(1980, 4-1, 3);
const birthdate = bdate.toLocaleString('es', { month: 'short', year : 'numeric', day : 'numeric' }).replaceAll(" ", "-");

console.log(birthdate)


function join(t, a, s) {
   function format(m) {
      let f = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('es', m);
      return f.format(t);
   }
   return a.map(format).join(s);
}


let a = [{day: 'numeric'}, {month: 'short'}, {year: 'numeric'}];
let s = join(bdate, a, '-');
console.log(s);

let ye = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('es', { year: 'numeric' }).format(bdate);
let mo = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('es', { month: 'short' }).format(bdate);
let da = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('es', { day: 'numeric' }).format(bdate);
console.log(`${da}-${mo}-${ye}`);

The first option just adds a `replaceAll`, that's the shortest version I could find, otherwise you'll need to add another package that can handle fate formats more easily — Pietro Nadalini, Sep 22 '21 at 06:16

toLocaleString not getting the language I set on node.js

1 Answers1