Format JavaScript Date object to specific format

Question

I have a JavaScript Date object. I am submitting this to a web service. The web service expects the format to be something like this: 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z. Unfortunately, I do not even know what that format is called. It looks like its [Year]-[Month]-[Day]-T[Hours]:[Minutes]:[Seconds]Z.

I suspect that the Z means something. However, I do not know what. Is this a standard Date format? If so, is there a way I can easily convert my Date object to this format? Or, do I need to manually build it?

Thank you!

T.J. Crowder · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-23 15:28:25Z

1

I do not even know what that format is called.

It's one of the forms defined by ISO-8601.

On any modern browser, you can get that form using the toISOString method, except it will include milliseconds, which your example doesn't. The endpoint you're sending to may not care; if it does, a simple replace can get rid of them:

var str = dt.toISOString().replace(/\.\d{3}/, '');

If you need to support IE8, you'll need a polyfill.

Another option is to use something like MomentJS, which offers all kinds of formatting options.

Example of toISOString and replace:

var dt = new Date();
var str = dt.toISOString().replace(/\.\d{3}/, '');
snippet.log(str);

<!-- Script provides the `snippet` object, see http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/242144/134069 -->
<script src="http://tjcrowder.github.io/simple-snippets-console/snippet.js"></script>

answered Jan 23, 2015 at 15:28

T.J. Crowder

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JQuery Mobile Over a year ago

Wow! Phenomenal answer. Thank you for being so thorough.

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