Date now greater than date value given

Question

I am having to try to determine whether a date from a hidden field, formatted mm/dd/yyyy, is less than today. if it is, I want to let the person know that a subscription has expired. I have had this working on some occasions but it is not reliably doing it??

//this is the expiration date that is in a hidden field
var expireDate = $("#expire").val();

//here I am trying to setup a new date for today and change the output to match the date
//format for the hidden field, i.e. mm/dd/yyyy
var a = new Date();
var b = a.toISOString().split("T")[0].split("-");
var ca = b[1] + "/" + b[2] + "/" + b[0];


//now I want to compare the 2 and if the expiration date is less than today, display a warning message                      
if (expireDate < ca) {
   $("<div class=\"message-warning\">This subscription is expired</div>")
    .insertAfter("#enddate");
};

you appear to be attempting to perform a greater than comparison on two strings? No wonder it doesn't work reliably. — Alastair Pitts, Sep 13 '11 at 03:40
@Alastair - Why would they want to consider types in this scenario??? — ChaosPandion, Sep 13 '11 at 03:41
Thank you for pointing that out. To go with that, would you mind offering assistance as to what I am doing wrong? — pertrai1, Sep 13 '11 at 03:42
@pertrai1 - what does the value in `#expire` look like? is that a string representation of a date, eg. `13/09/2011`? — Alastair Pitts, Sep 13 '11 at 04:13
Note when using Javascript (runs client-side), someone could change their system clock such that their subscription would never expire. — mVChr, Sep 13 '11 at 04:32
@Alastair - The #expire value is in the format of mm/dd/yyyy — pertrai1, Sep 13 '11 at 11:54

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '11 at 03:51

16

You're comparing the numerical value of strings, which happen to be the string representation of dates in mm/dd/yyyy format. I'm guessing that your "inconsistent" results are that it works if the old date is an earlier month than today.

Instead of converting a to a string, convert expireDate to a Date object. Then compare.

var expireDateStr = $("#expire").val();
var expireDateArr = expireDateStr.split("/");
var expireDate = new Date(expireDateArr[2], expireDateArr[0], expireDateArr[1]);
var todayDate = new Date();

if (todayDate > expireDate) {
   $("<div class=\"message-warning\">This subscription is expired</div>")
    .insertAfter("#enddate");
};

answered Sep 13 '11 at 03:51

torstenvl

779
7
16

I think you would want to remove the time portion of the current date for this to work. – ChaosPandion Sep 13 '11 at 03:54
That would depend on the semantics of their subscription system. If the subscription expires at 00:00:01 on the expiration date, then the code works as-is. If it expires at 23:59:59 on the expiration date, then you could simply change one line: var expireDate = new Date(expireDateArr[2], expireDateArr[0], expireDateArr[1], 23, 59, 59); – torstenvl Sep 13 '11 at 03:59
This is working great but the one issue I have when checking the console log in Firebug is that the month is 1 month ahead. So if the expiration is 05/08/2011 it says it is Jun 08 2011. How would this be adjusted to show the correct month? Thank you – pertrai1 Sep 13 '11 at 04:22
I forgot that JavaScript indexes months starting at 0. Just subtract 1 from the month when you create the date object.... var expireDate = new Date(expireDateArr[2], (expireDateArr[0] - 1), expireDateArr[1]); You might have to use parseInt though. – torstenvl Sep 13 '11 at 06:47
should this be that complicated? – AZ Chad Aug 14 '18 at 17:41

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '11 at 04:25

var expireDate = $("#expire").val().split('/'),
    expireYear = parseInt(expireDate[2], 10), // cast Strings as Numbers
    expireMo = parseInt(expireDate[0], 10),
    expireDay = parseInt(expireDate[1], 10);

var now = new Date(),
    nowYear = now.getFullYear(),
    nowMo = now.getMonth() + 1, // for getMonth(), January is 0
    nowDay = now.getDate();

// don't expire until day after expiry date
if (nowYear > expireYear ||
    nowYear == expireYear && nowMo > expireMo ||
    nowYear == expireYear && nowMo == expireMo && nowDay > expireDay) {

   $("<div class=\"message-warning\">This subscription is expired</div>")
    .insertAfter("#enddate");

};

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 14 '18 at 17:55

0

other thread

simpler IMO:

var startDt=document.getElementById("startDateId").value;
var endDt=document.getElementById("endDateId").value;

if( (new Date(startDt).getTime() > new Date(endDt).getTime()))
{
   ----------------------------------
}

answered Aug 14 '18 at 17:55

AZ Chad

1,616
1
15
20

Date now greater than date value given

3 Answers3

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