JS: parse time to pull out hours and minutes using date-fns, ignroing timezones

Question

My backend sends me a timestamp in the following format: 2019-12-15T20:00:00.000Z which is UTC time. Now all I need is to pull out the time without modifying it for timezones. I am using date-fns but every time I try to get the time I either get an Invalid Date or it modifies the time to the local timezone. Right now my code is:

import { format, parse, parseISO } from 'date-fns'

format(parseISO('2019-12-15T20:00:00.000Z'), 'h:mm a')

What I want is: 8:00 PM but what I get is 3:00 PM because its converting from UTC to EST time (my local timezone). I know I can do things like to IsoString and then parse the string, but I am looking for a way to use date-fns to do it so I don't have to write custom string parsers. There has to be an easy way to just ignore timezones?

Answer 1

I am going to answer my own question with how I make it work in case it helps someone, but I am still looking to see if there is a better alternative of just using date-fns since mine seems a bit hackish:

What I do is remove the timezone from the ISO string and then use that time with date-fns:

let time = "2019-12-15T20:00:00.000Z".slice(0, -5)

The above is a time with no time zone, and because there is no timezone date-fns assumes the local timezone, so when you do:

format(parseISO(time), 'h:mm a')

you get: 8:00 PM, or whatever format you prefer. You just have to be careful with the string that you are slicing. If its always the same format then it should work.