Detecting an "invalid date" Date instance in JavaScript

Question

I'd like to tell the difference between valid and invalid date objects in JS, but couldn't figure out how:

var d = new Date("foo");
console.log(d.toString()); // shows 'Invalid Date'
console.log(typeof d); // shows 'object'
console.log(d instanceof Date); // shows 'true'

Any ideas for writing an isValidDate function?

• Ash recommended Date.parse for parsing date strings, which gives an authoritative way to check if the date string is valid.
• What I would prefer, if possible, is have my API accept a Date instance and to be able to check/assert whether it's valid or not. Borgar's solution does that, but I need to test it across browsers. I also wonder whether there's a more elegant way.
• Ash made me consider not having my API accept Date instances at all, this would be easiest to validate.
• Borgar suggested testing for a Date instance, and then testing for the Date's time value. If the date is invalid, the time value is NaN. I checked with ECMA-262 and this behavior is in the standard, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

Answer 1

Here's how I would do it:

if (Object.prototype.toString.call(d) === "[object Date]") {
  // it is a date
  if (isNaN(d.getTime())) {  // d.valueOf() could also work
    // date is not valid
  } else {
    // date is valid
  }
} else {
  // not a date
}

Update [2018-05-31]: If you are not concerned with Date objects from other JS contexts (external windows, frames, or iframes), this simpler form may be preferred:

function isValidDate(d) {
  return d instanceof Date && !isNaN(d);
}