Dec 8, 2022 Author - Sai gowtham

How to format the date and time in JavaScript

javascript3min read

In the last tutorial, we have seen how to get the current date and time.In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to format the date and time in JavaScript.

JavaScript Date object comes with different type of date and time methods.But we are using toLocaleDateString() and toLocaleTimeString() methods.

Formatting date

The toLocaleDateString() method accepts two arguments, which are locales and options.

Locale means the type of local language you need to format.

These are some options we are using to format the date.

weekday: possible values are narrow short, long.

year: possible values are numeric, 2-digit.

month: possible values are numeric, 2-digit, narrow, short, long.

day: possible values are numeric, 2-digit.

Example


const options = {
     weekday: "long",
     year: "numeric",
     month:"long",
     day:"numeric"
};

new Date().toLocaleDateString("en-US",options);
// output - > "Saturday, December 8, 2018"

new Date().toLocaleDateString("hi",options);
// output -> "शनिवार, 8 दिसंबर 2018"

new Date().toLocaleDateString("ja-JP-u-ca-japanese",options);
// output -> "30年12月8日土曜日"

Now we are changing the option values from long to short.

const options = {
     weekday: "short",
     year: "numeric",
     month:"short",
     day:"2-digit"
     }

new Date().toLocaleDateString("en-US",options);

//output ->  "Sat, Dec 08, 2018"

const options = {
     year: "2-digit",
     month:"2-digit",
     day:"2-digit"
     }

new Date().toLocaleDateString("en-US",options);
// output  "12/08/18"


const options = {
       weekday:"short",
       day:"2-digit"
    }

new Date().toLocaleDateString("en-US",options);

 //  "08 Sat"

Formatting time

The toLocaleTimeString() method also accepts two arguments, locales and options.

These are some available options.

timeZone : Iana time zones List

hour12 : true or false.(true is 12 hour time ,false is 24hr time)

hour: numeric, 2-digit.

minute: numeric, 2-digit.

second: numeric, 2-digit.

const options = {
       timeZone:"Africa/Accra",
       hour12 : true,
       hour:  "2-digit",
       minute: "2-digit",
      second: "2-digit"
    };

new Date().toLocaleTimeString("en-US",options);

//-> Africa timezone with 12hr time  "8:09:19 AM"

const options = {
       timeZone:"Asia/Kolkata",
       hour12 : false,
       hour:  "2-digit",
       minute: "2-digit",
      second: "2-digit"
    }

new Date().toLocaleTimeString("en-US",options);

//Asia/Kolkata timezone with 24hr time  "13:42:31"

const options = {
       timeZone:"Canada/Central",
       hour12 : true,
       hour:  "numeric",
       minute: "numeric",seconds:"numeric"
    }

new Date().toLocaleTimeString("en-US",options);

// Canada/Central timezone -> "2:17 AM"

You can also get only hour.

const options = {
       timeZone:"Canada/Central",
       hour:  "numeric",
    }

new Date().toLocaleTimeString("en-IN",options);

//output   "2 AM"


new Date().toLocaleTimeString("ko-KR",options);

//output  "오전 2시"