How to Create a Date Object in Javascript?

To create a date object in javascript, we have to call the Date constructor. As a result, it returns the date object having a current date(mm/dd/yyyy), and time(Hrs: min: sec).

As an example, we called the Date constructor to make a date object-

Output-

Above, we called the Date constructor and assigned the return object in the myDate variable, then logged myDate on the console. As a result, we printed "Mon Jul 18 2022 18:08:22 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)" on the console, which is the date and time when the code is executed.

In the above example, we called the Date constructor without passing any argument, but we have other different ways.

4 Variants of Date Constructor to Create a Date Object

There are four ways to create a date object using the Date constructor in javascript.

Date()

Calling the Date constructor without any passing any parameter returns a new date object having values of current date and time-

Output-

Above, we call the Date constructor without passing any parameter and assigned the return value in a variable currentDate. Then, we logged the currentDate on the console by applying toDateString method, as a result, it prints "Fri Jul 22 2022 16:17:36 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)" on the console.

Date(milliseconds)

Javascript stores the date in a number of milliseconds since January 01, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC, till now it's 1658230119890 milliseconds(constantly running) from the January 01, 1970.

When we call the Date constructor by passing milliseconds as a parameter, it returns the time and date considering January 01, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC starting value of time and date, ie- given value of millisecond will be converted in time and date and will be added after the January 01, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.

As an example, we are calling the Date constructor by passing 86 400 000 milliseconds(24 hours) as a parameter to add 24 more hours-

Output-

Above, we called the Date constructor by passing the milliseconds as a parameter, then assigned the return object in myVal and logged it on the console. As a result, it prints "Fri Jan 02 1970 05:30:00 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)" on the console because we passed the 24 hours(in milliseconds) as a parameter.

JavaScript Date Methods

We use the Date constructor to make date objects, but there are several methods defined inside the Date constructor, each time a date object is created inherits the predefined methods into the Date constructor.

These methods are used to perform various operations upon date object, for example- we use the getFullYear to get the year as a four-digit number and setFullYear to set the year.

In the table below, we have given a list of the following methods:

Examples

We are taking some examples to understand how to make a date object in javascript:

JavaScript Date Example

In this example, we will get the today date by calling the getDate method on a date object-

Output-

Above, we called the getDate method on the date object and logged it on the console. As a result, we print 20 (today's date) on the console.

JavaScript Current Time Example

In this example, we will get the current time by calling the getTime method on a date object-

Output-

Above, we called the getTime method on the time object and logged it on the console. As a result, we print 1658257721118 on the console. The reason behind this is getTime method gets the time which in Javascript stored in a number of milliseconds since January 01, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC, till now it's 1658257721118 milliseconds(constantly running) from the January 01, 1970.

JavaScript Digital Clock Example

In this example, we will make a digital clock by calling the getHours, getMinutes, and getSeconds methods on a date object-

Output-

Above, we called the getHours, getMinutes, and getSeconds methods on time objects using string literals and logged them on the console simultaneously. As a result, we print "0:54:27" on the console because getHours, getMinutes and getSeconds methods get the hours, minutes, and seconds from the date object.