Extends the Date native to include more powerful parsing and formatting functions.

• Online Tutorial/Demo

• Nicholas Barthelemy - https://svn.nbarthelemy.com/date-js/
• Harald Kirshner - mail [at] digitarald.de; http://digitarald.de
• Aaron Newton - aaron [dot] newton [at] cnet [dot] com
• Scott Kyle - scott [at] appden.com; http://appden.com

MIT-style license

Retrieves a property of a date.

date.get(key);

1. key - (string) the key of the value you wish to get

• (mixed) the corresponding value for the key supplied

• All of the native date methods work with get in addition to most of the get... methods added in Date.js. These are: "Date", "Day", "FullYear", "Hours", "Milliseconds", "Minutes", "Month", "Seconds", "Time", "TimezoneOffset", "Week", "Timezone", "GMTOffset", "Ordinal", "DayOfYear", "LastMonth", "UTCDate", "UTCDay", "UTCFullYear", "AMPM", "UTCHours", "UTCMilliseconds", "UTCMinutes", "UTCMonth", "UTCSeconds"
• get is not case sensitive; so you can do get('date')

The following aliases/shortcuts are available:

• ms: "Milliseconds"
• year: "FullYear"
• min: "Minutes"
• mo: "Month"
• sec: "Seconds"
• hr: "Hours"

date.get('date');
date.get('year');
date.get('ms');
//etc.

Sets a property of a date.

date.set(arguments);

• Two Arguments (property, value)
  1. property - (string) the property that you want to set
  2. value - (mixed) the value for the key
• One Argument (properties)
  1. properties - (object) Object with its keys/value pairs representing the properties and values to set for the Date (as described below).

• All of the native date methods work with set. These are: "Date", "FullYear", "Hours", "Milliseconds", "Minutes", "Month", "Seconds", "Time", "UTCDate", "UTCFullYear", "UTCHours", "UTCMilliseconds", "UTCMinutes", "UTCMonth", "UTCSeconds"
• set is not case sensitive; so you can do set('date')

The following aliases/shortcuts are available:

• ms: "Milliseconds"
• year: "FullYear"
• min: "Minutes"
• mo: "Month"
• sec: "Seconds"
• hr: "Hours"

date.set('date', 12);
date.set('year', 2001);
date.set('ms', 100);
//etc.

Returns a copy of the date.

date.clone();

var today = new Date();
var todayCopy = today.clone();

• (date) A new Date object with the same date/time set as the cloned one.

Increments a value in the date.

date.increment(interval, times);

1. interval - (string, optional) "day", "month", etc. (defaults to 'day')
2. times - (integer, optional) the number of times to increment (defaults to 1)

new Date().increment('day', 4); //four days from now
new Date().increment(); //tomorrow
new Date().increment('year'); //one year from now

• (Date) This Date.

• the only acceptable values for interval are year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, and ms

Decrements a value in the date. See Date:increment.

• (Date) This Date.

• the only acceptable values for interval are year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, and ms

Returns true if the date is in a leap year.

new Date().isLeapYear();

• (boolean) true if date is in a leap year

Sets the hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds to zero.

new Date().clearTime(); //midnight on the dot

• (Date) This Date.

Compares two dates.

date.diff(otherDate[, resolution]);

1. otherDate - (date) the other date to compare this one to.
2. resolution - (string, optional) how fine a comparision to make; 'day', 'month', etc. defaults to 'day'

var today = new Date();
var tomorrow = today.clone().increment();
today.diff(tomorrow); //returns 1
today.diff(tomorrow, 'minute'); //returns 1440

• (integer) the difference in time at the specified resolution

Returns the time zone for the date. Example: "GMT".

new Date().get('timezone'); //"GMT" or whatever

• (string) the time zone stamp ("GMT" for example);

Returns the offset to GMT as a string. Example: "-0800".

new Date().get('gmtoffset'); //"-0800" or whatever

• (string) the GMT offset

new Date().get('week');

• (integer) the week of the year for the date (i.e. 1 - 52).

new Date().get('ordinal');

• (string) the ordinal for the day ('th', 'st', 'nd', etc).

new Date().get('dayofyear');

• (integer) the day of the year (i.e. for Dec. 10, you'll get 344 in a non-leap year).

new Date().get('lastdayofmonth');

• (integer) the last day of the month (i.e. for December, you'll get 31).

Outputs the date into a specific format.

new Date().format(format);

1. format - (string) a string format for the output. Use the keys below with percent signs to get a desired output. Defaults to "%x %X", which renders "12/31/2007 03:45PM"

• a - short day ("Mon", "Tue")
• A - full day ("Monday")
• b - short month ("Jan", "Feb")
• B - full month ("January")
• c - the full date to string ("Mon Dec 10 2007 14:35:42 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time)"; same as .toString() method.
• d - the date to two digits (01, 05, etc)
• D - the date as one digit (1, 5, 12, etc)
• H - the hour to two digits in military time (24 hr mode) (01, 11, 14, etc)
• I - the hour in 12 hour time (1, 11, 2, etc)
• j - the day of the year to three digits (001 is Jan 1st)
• m - the numerical month to two digits (01 is Jan, 12 is Dec)
• M - the minutes to two digits (01, 40, 59)
• o - the ordinal of the day of the month in the current language ("st" for the 1st, "nd" for the 2nd, etc.)
• p - The current language equivalent of either AM or PM
• S - the seconds to two digits (01, 40, 59)
• U - the week to two digits (01 is the week of Jan 1, 52 is the week of Dec 31)
• w - the numerical day of the week, one digit (0 is Sunday, 1 is Monday)
• x - the date in the current language prefered format. en-US: %m/%d/%Y (12/10/2007)
• X - the time in the current language prefered format. en-US: %I:%M%p (02:45PM)
• y - the short year (two digits; "07")
• Y - the full year (four digits; "2007")
• T - the GMT offset ("-0800")
• Z - the time zone ("GMT")
• % - returns % (example: %y%% = 07%)

These shortcuts are NOT preceded by the percent sign.

• db - "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",
• compact - "%Y%m%dT%H%M%S",
• iso8601 - "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%T",
• rfc822 - "%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z",
• short - "%d %b %H:%M",
• long - "%B %d, %Y %H:%M"

See Date:defineFormat to define new shortcuts.

new Date().format('db'); //1999-12-31 23:59:59
new Date().format('%x'); //12/31/1999
new Date().format('%y'); //99

• (string) the corresponding format for the Date.

Outputs the date in the ISO-8601 standard format (i.e. 1999-12-31T11:59:59-0800).

new Date().toISOString();  //equivalent to format('iso8601')

• (string) the date in ISO-8601 format.

Parses a string to a date. In the examples below, parsing works with dates using / (slash), - (dash), or . (period). (12.31.2007, 12-31-2007, 12/31/2007).

Date.parse(date);
new Date().parse(date);

1. date - (string) a string date that has a predefined parser (see Date:defineParser)

Date.parse('10/12/1982') //"Tue Oct 12 1982 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('10/12/1982 10:45pm') //"Tue Oct 12 1982 22:45:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('10.12.1982 22:45:00') //"Tue Oct 12 1982 22:45:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('2007-06-08 16:34:52') //"Fri Jun 08 2007 16:34:52 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('2007-06-08T16:34:52+0200') //"Fri Jun 08 2007 07:34:52 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('Thu Oct 22 08:11:23 +0000 2009') //Thu Oct 12 2009 08:11:23 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

Date.parse('1st') //"Sat Dec 01 2007 00:00:00 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time)"
Date.parse('14th October') //"Sun Oct 14 2007 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('24th May, 2007') //"Thu May 24 2007 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"
Date.parse('May 3rd 2006 10:45pm') //"Wed May 03 2006 22:45:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"

var PrinceParty = new Date();
PrinceParty.parse('12/31/1999 11:59pm'); //PrinceParty is now set for 12/31/1999 just before midnight

• (date) a Date instance with the parsed value as its date.

• Date.js includes many default parsers, you will get some more if you include Date.Extras.js
• You can write your own parsers - see Date:defineParser
• If you execute the parse method against an instance of Date, that instance will take on the parsed value
• If you execute the parse method against the Date namespace a new Date object is created and returned

Adds a new shortcut for Date:format.

Date.defineFormat(name, format);

1. name - (string) name of the new format
2. format - (string) format string (see Date:format)

Date.defineFormat('time', '%H:%M');
new Date().format('time');    //17:30

Add a new shortcuts for Date:format. Plural form of Date:defineFormat.

Date.defineFormats(formats);

1. formats - (object) key/value pairs corresponding to the name and format passed into Date:defineFormat

Date.defineFormats({
    time: '%H:%M',
    day: '%A'
});

See Date:parse above.

Additional parsers can be authored than those already outlined by default in Date.js. If you include Date.Extras.js you'll get several more, but you can write your own.

Date.defineParser(pattern);

• pattern - (string or object) see descriptions below.

A pattern string is somewhat of a hybrid between regular expressions and the format strings passed into Date:format. First, an example:

Date.defineParser('%d%o( %b( %Y)?)?( %X)?');

As you can see, the above pattern (already included in Date.js) uses parantheses for grouping with a question mark to denote the preceding item or group as being optional, just as in a regular expression. It parsers strings such as:

• 14th
• 31st October
• 1 Jan 2000
• 1 Jan 12:00am

All of the same keys that are supported in Date:format are supported here, except %c, %U, %w, and %Z. However, the matching rules for each key is as loose as possible in order to parse the greatest number of variations.

Each custom pattern object has two properties: a regular expression and a handler that is passed the result of that expression executed on the string to be parsed.

Date.defineParser({
    re: <regularExpression>,
    handler: function(bits){...}
});

The legacy method of adding parsers is still supported but considered deprecated.

Date.parsePatterns.push(pattern);
Date.parsePatterns.extend([pattern, pattern, etc]);

Plural form of Date:defineParser.

Date.defineParsers(pattern, pattern, etc.);

1. format - can be multiple format arguments or an array of formats.

Define the first year of the 100-year period that 2-digit years will be fall within when parsed. The default start year is 1970.

Date.define2DigitYearStart(year)

1. year - (integer) first year of the 100-year period

Date.parse('01/01/00');  //Jan 1, 2000
Date.parse('12/31/99');  //Dec 31, 1999

Date.define2DigitYearStart(2000);
Date.parse('01/01/00');  //Jan 1, 2000
Date.parse('12/31/99');  //Dec 31, 2099

Date.js includes the following key/values for localization. See Lang.

• months - (array) An array of month names for the language (January, February, etc)
• days - (array) An array of names for the days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc)
• dateOrder - (array) An array specifying the order for date expression followed by a default delimiter (usually /). US english is ['month', 'date', 'year', '/'], for instance.
• AM - (string) the string that denotes morning in 12 hour time
• PM - (string) the string that denotes evening in 12 hour time
• ordinal - (function) A method that returns the proper ordinal ("th", "st", "nd", etc) given a day of the month.