Javascript New Date() / UTC - GMT cross browser

Question

The issue: Different formats for new Date() in IE 10 - IE 11. Javascript:

IE 11 / Chrome :

var m = new Date("2014-07-04T04:00:00"); 
console.log(m); // Fri Jul 04 2014 06:00:00 GMT+0200 (W. Europe Summer Time) 

IE 10:

var m = new Date("2014-07-04T04:00:00"); 
console.log(m); // Fri Jul 4 04:00:00 UTC+0200 2014 

Is possible to use one ring to rule them all?

Answer 1

You shouldn't pass a string to new Date, specifically for this reason.

Instead, you should either give it the individual arguments:

new Date(2014, 6, 4, 4, 0, 0); // remember months are zero-based

Or, if you want to give it a time in UTC, try:

var d = new Date();
d.setUTCFullYear(2014);
d.setUTCMonth(6);
d.setUTCDate(4);
d.setUTCHours(4);
d.setUTCMinutes(0);
d.setUTCSeconds(0);
d.setUTCMilliseconds(0);

You can, of course, make a function to do this.

Alternatively, if you have a timestamp, you can simply do:

var d = new Date();
d.setTime(1404446400000);

Answer 2

To complete the answer a bit. The UTC example given is dangerous, given that you execute on 31st of May (or any other 31st day of month) the following:

var d = new Date();
d.setUTCFullYear(2014);
d.setUTCMonth(5);
d.setUTCDate(4);
d.setUTCHours(4);
d.setUTCMinutes(0);
d.setUTCSeconds(0);
d.setUTCMilliseconds(0);

it will produce "2014 July 4 04:00:00".

So prefer Date.UTC function instead:

new Date(Date.UTC(2014, 5, 4, 4, 0, 0, 0))

it will produce "2014 June 4 04:00:00".