JavaScript date parsing producing wrong date

Question

I have this script:

var a="Thu Oct 07 16:50:0 CEST 2010";
var b=a.split("CEST");
var d = new Date(b[0]);
alert(d);

But it doesn't work how I want. In fact the date result differs from the original in the string.

The input is Thu Oct 07 16:50:0 CEST 2010 but the result is different Sat Oct 07 2000 16:50:00 GMT+0200 (CEST). What is wrong?

The result is Sat Oct 07 2000 16:50:00 GMT+0200 (CEST) but the source is Thu Oct 07 16:50:0 CEST 2010. If I type d.getDay() it return Sat but it will be Thu! — michele
– michele, Commented Oct 7, 2010 at 23:14
@michele — You need to tell us what you want the result to be. Your code is currently discarding the year, leaving the browser to "guess" what year you meant, and that clearly isn't want you wanted, but what is? — Ben Blank
– Ben Blank, Commented Oct 7, 2010 at 23:20
I want that d is the same data that is rapresented on the string. And I can parse the year day month hour minute seconds — michele
– michele, Commented Oct 7, 2010 at 23:25

tec · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-01 12:24:13Z

4

You're just losing the information about the year. split splits the string into an array at 'CEST' of which you only parse the first element (the part of the string left of 'CEST'). So you either need to add the right part of the string again or use a better suited method like replace:

var a="Thu Oct 07 16:50:0 CEST 2010";
var b=a.split("CEST");
var d = new Date(b[0]+b[1]);
alert(d);

var a="Thu Oct 07 16:50:0 CEST 2010";
var b= a.replace('CEST','');
var d = new Date(b);
alert(d);

edited Sep 1, 2015 at 12:24

answered Oct 7, 2010 at 23:45

tec

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3 Comments

tec Over a year ago

Of course you are loosing information about the time zone this way and the browser will use your local client side time zone.

Stephen P Over a year ago

Nobody is loosing anything - they are, however, losing both the year and the timezone.

tec Over a year ago

You are -of course- right, Stephen. I blame the 2 am that we currently have in my time zone for the first typo and my non-native-speaker English skills for the second. ;-)

Stephen P · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-08 00:21:07Z

1

As far as I know

:0 in place of :00 is not valid
The year should follow the date e.g. Thu Oct 07 2010 16:50:00 not be at the end
Providing timezone info to be parsed must be in the format GMT(+|-)nnnn for CEST that would be Thu Oct 07 2010 16:50:00 GMT+0200

Though it doesn't really seem to care about the :0

Where did you come up with the string for var a?

answered Oct 8, 2010 at 0:21

Stephen P

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Comments

kennebec · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-08 04:03:36Z

Rearrange the string, replace 'CEST' with the offset time, and parse a date out of it:

var str="Thu Oct 07 16:50:00 CEST 2010",

pattern=str.replace('CEST','GMT-0200').split(' ');
pattern.splice(3,0,pattern.pop());
str=pattern[0]+' '+pattern[1]+' '+pattern[2]+', '+pattern.slice(3).join(' ');

D= new Date(Date.parse(str));

alert('\nLocal: '+D+'\nGMT: '+D.toUTCString())

//Rearranged string: Thu Oct 07, 2010 16:50:00 GMT-02:00

Firefox:

Local: Thu Oct 07 2010 14:50:00 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)

GMT: Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:50:00 GMT

IE :

Local: Thu Oct 7 14:50:00 EDT 2010

GMT: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 18:50:00 UTC

Safari:

Local: Thu Oct 07 2010 14:50:00 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)

GMT: Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:50:00 GMT

Opera:

Local: Thu Oct 07 2010 14:50:00 GMT-0400

GMT: Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:50:00 GMT

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