Javascript - Get Previous Months Date

Question

If i have a variable that returns a date, in the format of dd MMM yyyy, so 28 Aug 2014, how can i get the date of the previous month.

I can modify the month via:

Answer 1

var myVariable = "28 Aug 2014"
var makeDate = new Date(myVariable);
makeDate = new Date(makeDate.setMonth(makeDate.getMonth() - 1));

Update:

A shorter version:

var myVariable = "28 Aug 2014"
var makeDate = new Date(myVariable);

console.log('Original date: ', makeDate.toString());

makeDate.setMonth(makeDate.getMonth() - 1);

console.log('After subtracting a month: ', makeDate.toString());

Update 2:

If you don't want to deal with corner cases just use moment.js. Native JavaScript API for Date is bad.