Date constructor: numeric arguments vs. string argument giving different dates in some cases

Question

First of all, I think timezone probably has something to do with this. I\'m in EST/EDT. Also, I\'m testing this on chromium 17 / linux.

Now, let\'s say I create two

Answer 1

After looking in V8's source code:

// Specification:
// Accept ES5 ISO 8601 date-time-strings or legacy dates compatible
// with Safari.
<...>
//  A string that matches both formats (e.g. 1970-01-01) will be
//  parsed as an ES5 date-time string - which means it will default
//  to UTC time-zone. That's unavoidable if following the ES5
//  specification.

Reading the surrounding code, it seems that a date-time string with both month and day 2 symbols long is considered a valid ES5 date-time string. Further down in the ES5 parser, after it parses the dates and times, there's a comment:

// Successfully parsed ES5 Date Time String. Default to UTC if no TZ given.

In case of "YYYY-MM-DD", once the code gets that far, the ES5 parser has successfully parsed the entire string, so it returns before the legacy parser gets a chance to localize the timezone. Otherwise (month/day are one symbol long) it's treated as a "legacy" datetime and the legacy parser gets to deal with it and localize it.