Moment js default timezone not working when creating date

Question

Please refer to the following code snippets.

Problem 1: I am setting default timezone for moment js. But right after setting it, If I retrieve the timezone from moment it is not what I just set.

console.log("Currrent timezone: "); console.log(moment.tz());
console.log("Updating timezone: "); console.log("America/Lima");
moment.tz.setDefault("America/Lima");
console.log("Currrent timezone after updating: "); console.log(moment.tz());

Following log is printed:

Currrent timezone: Moment {_isAMomentObject: true, _isUTC: true, _pf: {…}, _locale: Locale, _d: Wed Nov 15 2017 13:39:45 GMT+0500 (Pakistan Standard Time), …}
Updating timezone: America/Lima
Currrent timezone after updating: Moment {_isAMomentObject: true, _isUTC: true, _pf: {…}, _locale: Locale, _d: Wed Nov 15 2017 13:39:45 GMT+0500 (Pakistan Standard Time), …}

Problem 2: Also another problem is that, the default timezone which I set is applied to moment.format() function but not applied when creating new date objects from moment.

console.log(moment(new Date()).toDate()); // this uses user browser timezone
// prints Wed Nov 15 2017 13:57:40 GMT+0500 (Pakistan Standard Time)
// I want it to give the time in the timezone which i just set above

console.log(moment(new Date()).local().toDate());
// prints Wed Nov 15 2017 13:57:40 GMT+0500 (Pakistan Standard Time)

console.log(moment(new Date()).format()); // this uses the timezone which I set above in moment default timezone. This is correct intended behavior
// prints: 2017-11-15T03:57:40-05:00

Answer 1

1. Solution: Moment timezone setDefault is affecting the instances created after setDefault. If you debug like this:

console.log("Currrent timezone: "); console.log(moment().tz());
console.log("Current time: "); console.log(moment().format());
console.log("Updating timezone: "); console.log("America/Lima");
moment.tz.setDefault("America/Lima");
console.log("Current time: "); console.log(moment().format());
console.log("Currrent timezone after updating: "); console.log(moment().tz());

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.19.2/moment-with-locales.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment-timezone/0.5.14/moment-timezone-with-data.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

You can see the setDefault is working.

2. Solution: .local() function sets a flag on the original moment to use local time to display a moment instead of the original moment's time. Even if you use moment.tz.setDefault to alter the timezone, it gets the computer's timezone.

console.log(moment(new Date()).format());
moment.tz.setDefault("America/Lima");
console.log(moment(new Date()).local().format());
console.log(moment(new Date()).format());

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.19.2/moment-with-locales.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment-timezone/0.5.14/moment-timezone-with-data.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>