JavaScript date() Object returns NaN with getYear (and other)

Question

I am currently having some issues converting a string dateTime object in JavaScript

I am assuming it is because my string cannot me used properly in a new Date() but I'm not sure that is the problem.

My Input: "2011-09-29 14:58:12"

My code:

var date = "2011-09-29 14:58:12";
var added = new Date(date);
var year = added.getYear();

However, my year var contains NaN. Same with getDay() or getMonth(). What is the problem?

ps: I'm getting the date in it's format from a SQLite database. And I'm using Titanium Mobile, so javascript and SQLite are the only things involved

Answer 1

You're relying on the Date constructor parsing an unsupported format. Until recently, there was no standard string format supported by the Date constructor. As of ECMAScript5, there is one (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS, note the T rather than space), but it's only been specified for just under two years and naturally doesn't work in older browsers.

For the time being, your best bet is to parse it yourself (you can find code in this question and its answers), or use something like DateJS, MomentJS, date-fns, etc. to parse it for you.