DataTables how do I show only date rather than datetime

Question

I'm using server side processing as per the Django example in DataTables. I return datetime values in this format 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss'. These date time values are currently displayed like this (for example):

Dec. 18, 2011, 11:59 p.m.

I would like to display just the date part rather than both date and time.

This is what I have in my html page:

<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
$(document).ready(function() {
        $('#certs-table').dataTable({
                "bJQueryUI": true,
                "sPaginationType": "full_numbers",
                "bProcessing": true,
                "bServerSide": true, 
                "sAjaxSource": "/cars/get_cars_list/",
                "iDisplayLength": 10,
                "aoColumnDefs": [
                        { "aTargets": [0], "bVisible": false, "bSearchable": false},
                        { 
                          "aTargets": [1], 
                           "fnRender": function ( oObj ) {
                                return '<a href=\"/cars/' + oObj.aData[0] + '/\">' + oObj.aData[1] + '</a>';
                            },
                          "bSearchable": true, 
                        },
                        { "aTargets": [2], "bSearchable": true},
                        { "aTargets": [3], "bSearchable": false, "sType": 'date'},
                ]
        });
} );
/* ]]> */
</script>

The date is is the 4th column, i.e., aTarget[3].

How do I display just the date portion please? I only started using DataTables/JQuery yesterday, so would really appreciate an example. Thanks.

Answer 1

It's often best to return the UTC date as JSON string from the server and then to format it in the browser with the user's local format settings. I like to use moment.js to do the formatting. Example:

"aoColumnDefs": [
    {   //format the date for local time
        "aTargets" : [ 1, 5], //indexes of whatever columns you need to format
        "mRender": function ( data, type, full ) {
            if(data){
                var mDate = moment(data);
                return (mDate && mDate.isValid()) ? mDate.format("L LT") : "";
            }
            return "";
        }
    }
]

There are different strings you can return that will work with moment. Make sure you specify the offset (Z) as +0000 otherwise the date will be parsed as local time.

moment("2010-10-20 4:30"); // parsed as 4:30 local time
moment("2010-10-20 4:30 +0000"); // parsed as 4:30 UTC 

Answer 2

I think that the best whay would be to convert data server side and just return the date format you want, but you could also

 { "aTargets": [3], 
   "bSearchable": false, 
   "sType": 'date',
   "fnRender": function ( oObj ) {
              var javascriptDate = new Date(oObj.aData[0]);
              javascriptDate = javascriptDate.getDate()+"/"+javascriptDate.getMonth()+"/"+javascriptDate.getFullYear();
              return "<div class= date>"+javascriptDate+"<div>";
              }
 }