Convert string to datetime

Question

How to convert string like '01-01-1970 00:03:44' to datetime?

Answer 1

Keep it simple with new Date(string). This should do it...

const s = '01-01-1970 00:03:44'; const d = new Date(s); console.log(d); // ---> Thu Jan 01 1970 00:03:44 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) 

Reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date

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EDIT: "Code Different" left a valuable comment that MDN no longer recommends using Date as a constructor like this due to browser differences. While the code above works fine in Chrome (v87.0.x) and Edge (v87.0.x), it gives an "Invalid Date" error in Firefox (v84.0.2).

One way to work around this is to make sure your string is in the more universal format of YYYY-MM-DD (obligatory xkcd), e.g., const s = '1970-01-01 00:03:44';, which seems to work in the three major browsers, but this doesn't exactly answer the original question.