How do I get the current date in JavaScript?

Answer 1

UPDATED!, Scroll Down

If you want something simple pretty to the end-user ... Also, fixed a small suffix issue in the first version below. Now properly returns suffix.

var objToday = new Date(),
	weekday = new Array('Sunday', 'Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday'),
	dayOfWeek = weekday[objToday.getDay()],
	domEnder = function() { var a = objToday; if (/1/.test(parseInt((a + "").charAt(0)))) return "th"; a = parseInt((a + "").charAt(1)); return 1 == a ? "st" : 2 == a ? "nd" : 3 == a ? "rd" : "th" }(),
	dayOfMonth = today + ( objToday.getDate() < 10) ? '0' + objToday.getDate() + domEnder : objToday.getDate() + domEnder,
	months = new Array('January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June', 'July', 'August', 'September', 'October', 'November', 'December'),
	curMonth = months[objToday.getMonth()],
	curYear = objToday.getFullYear(),
	curHour = objToday.getHours() > 12 ? objToday.getHours() - 12 : (objToday.getHours() < 10 ? "0" + objToday.getHours() : objToday.getHours()),
	curMinute = objToday.getMinutes() < 10 ? "0" + objToday.getMinutes() : objToday.getMinutes(),
	curSeconds = objToday.getSeconds() < 10 ? "0" + objToday.getSeconds() : objToday.getSeconds(),
	curMeridiem = objToday.getHours() > 12 ? "PM" : "AM";
var today = curHour + ":" + curMinute + "." + curSeconds + curMeridiem + " " + dayOfWeek + " " + dayOfMonth + " of " + curMonth + ", " + curYear;

document.getElementsByTagName('h1')[0].textContent = today;

UBBER UPDATE After much procrastination, I've finally GitHubbed and updated this with the final solution I've been using for myself. It's even had some last-minute edits to make it sweeter! If you're looking for the old jsFiddle, please see this.

This update comes in 2 flavors, still relatively small, though not as small as my above, original answer. If you want extremely small, go with that.
Also Note: This is still less bloated than moment.js. While moment.js is nice, imo, it has too many secular methods, which require learning moment as if it were a language. Mine here uses the same common format as PHP: date.

Quick Links

• Date.format.min.js 5.08 KB
• dateFormat.min.js 4.16 KB

Flavor 1 new Date().format(String) My Personal Fav. I know the taboo but works great on the Date Object. Just be aware of any other mods you may have to the Date Object.

//  use as simple as
new Date().format('m-d-Y h:i:s');   //  07-06-2016 06:38:34

Flavor 2 dateFormat(Date, String) More traditional all-in-one method. Has all the ability of the previous, but is called via the method with Date param.

//  use as simple as
dateFormat(new Date(), 'm-d-Y h:i:s');  //  07-06-2016 06:38:34

BONUS Flavor (requires jQuery) $.date(Date, String) This contains much more than just a simple format option. It extends the base Date object and includes methods such as addDays. For more information, please see the Git.

In this mod, the format characters are inspired by PHP: date. For a complete list, please see my README

This mod also has a much longer list of pre-made formats. To use a premade format, simply enter its key name. dateFormat(new Date(), 'pretty-a');

• 'compound'
  • 'commonLogFormat' == 'd/M/Y:G:i:s'
  • 'exif' == 'Y:m:d G:i:s'
  • 'isoYearWeek' == 'Y\\WW'
  • 'isoYearWeek2' == 'Y-\\WW'
  • 'isoYearWeekDay' == 'Y\\WWj'
  • 'isoYearWeekDay2' == 'Y-\\WW-j'
  • 'mySQL' == 'Y-m-d h:i:s'
  • 'postgreSQL' == 'Y.z'
  • 'postgreSQL2' == 'Yz'
  • 'soap' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:s.u'
  • 'soap2' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:s.uP'
  • 'unixTimestamp' == '@U'
  • 'xmlrpc' == 'Ymd\\TG:i:s'
  • 'xmlrpcCompact' == 'Ymd\\tGis'
  • 'wddx' == 'Y-n-j\\TG:i:s'
• 'constants'
  • 'AMERICAN' == 'F j Y'
  • 'AMERICANSHORT' == 'm/d/Y'
  • 'AMERICANSHORTWTIME' == 'm/d/Y h:i:sA'
  • 'ATOM' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:sP'
  • 'COOKIE' == 'l d-M-Y H:i:s T'
  • 'EUROPEAN' == 'j F Y'
  • 'EUROPEANSHORT' == 'd.m.Y'
  • 'EUROPEANSHORTWTIME' == 'd.m.Y H:i:s'
  • 'ISO8601' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:sO'
  • 'LEGAL' == 'j F Y'
  • 'RFC822' == 'D d M y H:i:s O'
  • 'RFC850' == 'l d-M-y H:i:s T'
  • 'RFC1036' == 'D d M y H:i:s O'
  • 'RFC1123' == 'D d M Y H:i:s O'
  • 'RFC2822' == 'D d M Y H:i:s O'
  • 'RFC3339' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:sP'
  • 'RSS' == 'D d M Y H:i:s O'
  • 'W3C' == 'Y-m-d\\TH:i:sP'
• 'pretty'
  • 'pretty-a' == 'g:i.sA l jS \\o\\f F Y'
  • 'pretty-b' == 'g:iA l jS \\o\\f F Y'
  • 'pretty-c' == 'n/d/Y g:iA'
  • 'pretty-d' == 'n/d/Y'
  • 'pretty-e' == 'F jS - g:ia'
  • 'pretty-f' == 'g:iA'

As you may notice, you can use double \ to escape a character.

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