The built-in methods beginning with set let us modify different parts of a Date object. We see in the example above that when we call the birthday variable we receive the new year as part of the output. For example, we can change the year of our birthday variable from above to be 1997 instead of 1980. We can use these set methods to modify one, more, or all of the components of a date. Below is a detailed chart of the set methods of the Date object. Where get is used to retrieve a specific component from a date, set is used to modify components of a date. Modifying the Date with setįor all the get methods that we learned about above, there is a corresponding set method. The built-in Date methods that begin with get allow us to access date components that return the number associated with what we are retrieving from the instantiated object. Since, at the time of writing, it’s not October 3rd, the console reflects that. Let’s make a new date, based on July 31, 1980, and assign it to a variable. Below is a detailed table of the get methods of the Date object. Each of these methods starts with get, and will return the relative number. The methods will return each part of the date relative to the local timezone. Once we have a date, we can access all the components of the date with various built-in methods. See the next section for a more detailed chart. This is because the date and time numbers start from 0, as most counting in programming does. You may also notice that the month of July is represented by 6, not the usual 7. However, the order cannot be changed, so keep that in mind if you decide to leave off a number. If any number is missing from the Date creation, it will default to 0. In the date and time method, our seconds and milliseconds are set to 0. You’ll notice the timestamp method has a negative number any date prior to Epoch time will be represented as a negative number. The three examples above all create a date containing the same information. To demonstrate the different ways to refer to a specific date, we’ll create new Date objects that will represent July 4th, 1776 at 12:30pm GMT in three different ways.
New Date(year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds)Ĭreates date based on specified date and time Date CreationĬreates date based on milliseconds since Epoch time In addition to the current time default and timestamp, you can also use a date string, or specify particular dates and times. In total, there are four formats by which you can create a new Date in JavaScript.
#Role models script timestamp how to#
So far, we learned how to create a new Date instance based on the current time, and how to create one based on a timestamp. It is important to understand the concept of both the timestamp and the date string, as both may be used depending on the settings and purpose of an application. Output01 January, 1970 00:00:00 Universal Time (UTC)Įpoch time was chosen as a standard for computers to measure time by in earlier days of programming, and it is the method that JavaScript uses.
This article is being written on Wednesday, October 18th in London (GMT), so that is the current date, time, and timezone that is represented below. To demonstrate JavaScript’s Date, let’s create a variable and assign the current date to it. This will be created according to the current computer’s system settings. It provides a number of built-in methods for formatting and managing that data.īy default, a new Date instance without arguments provided creates an object corresponding to the current date and time. The Date object is a built-in object in JavaScript that stores the date and time. This tutorial will go over how to format and use date and time in JavaScript. To achieve all of these objectives and more, JavaScript comes with the built in Date object and related methods. Additionally, you might need to use JavaScript to generate a report at a certain time every day, or filter through currently open restaurants and establishments. These applications need to show relevant times based on the user’s current timezone, or perform calculations around arrivals and departures or start and end times. In JavaScript, you might have to create a website with a calendar, a train schedule, or an interface to set up appointments. Date and time are a regular part of our everyday lives and therefore feature prominently in computer programming.