javascript - Moment.js - How to convert date string into date?

Question

Following up from my previous post: Javascript Safari: new Date() with strings returns invalid date when typed

I am using Moment.js to convert a date string into a date field based on user input in the text box.

This is to prevent the problem I described in the linked post for Safari and Firefox not able to render the date when Chrome is fine.

Here is the code snipper:

var tempDate = moment(userInputFieldDate).format('DD-MM-YYYY');
alert(tempDate);

In Chrome, it does work fine (it use to work with the Javascript Date object too) but gives me the moment.js deprecation warning

Deprecation warning: moment construction falls back to js Date. This is discouraged and will be removed in upcoming major release. Please refer to https://github.com/moment/moment/issues/1407 for more info. Arguments: [object Object] Error

On Firefox and Safari is just gives an UNDEFINED DATE in the alert window. So not entirely sure what should I be doing to convert the date string to a Date object.

Any suggestions on this issue?

Answer 1

If you are getting a JS based date String then first use the new Date(String) constructor and then pass the Date object to the moment method. Like:

var dateString = 'Thu Jul 15 2016 19:31:44 GMT+0200 (CEST)';
var dateObj = new Date(dateString);
var momentObj = moment(dateObj);
var momentString = momentObj.format('YYYY-MM-DD'); // 2016-07-15

In case dateString is 15-07-2016, then you should use the moment(date:String, format:String) method

var dateString = '07-15-2016';
var momentObj = moment(dateString, 'MM-DD-YYYY');
var momentString = momentObj.format('YYYY-MM-DD'); // 2016-07-15