JavaScript Date Formats

JavaScript Date Input

There are generally 4 types of JavaScript date formats:

• ISO Dates
• Long Dates
• Short Dates
• Full Format

JavaScript Date Output

Independent of input format, JavaScript will (by default) output dates in full text string format:

JavaScript ISO Dates

ISO 8601 is the international standard for the representation of dates and times.

The ISO 8601 syntax (YYYY-MM-DD) is also the preferred JavaScript date format:

It can be written without specifying the day (YYYY-MM):

It can be written without month and day (YYYY):

It can be written with added hours, minutes, and seconds (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS):

The T in the date string, between the date and time, indicates UTC time.

	UTC (Universal Time Coordinated)  is the same as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

JavaScript Long Dates.

Long dates are most often written with a "MMM DD YYYY" syntax like this:

Month and day can be in any order:

And, month can be written in full (January), or abbreviated (Jan):

Commas are ignored. Names are case insensitive:

JavaScript Short Dates.

Short dates are most often written with an "MM/DD/YYYY" syntax like this:

JavaScript will also accept "YYYY/MM/DD":

	Month is written before day in all short date and ISO date formats.

Full Date Format

JavaScript will accept date strings in "full JavaScript format":

JavaScript will ignore errors both in the day name and in the time parentheses:

Time Zones

JavaScript accepts these time zones:

When setting a date, without specifying the time zone, JavaScript will use the browser's time zone.

When getting a date, without specifying the time zone, the result is converted to the browser's time zone.

In other words: If a date/time is created in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), the date/time will be converted to CDT (Central US Daylight Time) if a user browses from central US.