Name
Date.parse( ) — parse a date/time string
Availability
JavaScript 1.0; JScript 1.0; ECMAScript v1
Synopsis
Date.parse(date
)
Arguments
-
date
A string containing the date and time to be parsed.
Returns
The number of milliseconds between the specified date and time and midnight GMT on January 1, 1970.
Description
Date.parse( )
is a static method of Date. It is
always invoked through the Date
constructor as
Date.parse( )
, not through a Date object as
date
.parse( )
.
Date.parse( )
takes a single string argument. It
parses the date contained in this string and returns it in
millisecond format, which can be used directly, used to create a new
Date object, or used to set the date in an existing Date object with
Date.setTime( )
.
The ECMAScript standard does not specify the format of the strings
that can be parsed by Date.parse( )
except to say
that this method can parse the strings returned by the
Date.toString( )
and Date.toUTCString( )
methods. Unfortunately, these functions format dates in
an implementation-dependent way, so it is not in general possible to
write dates in a way that is guaranteed to be understood by all
JavaScript implementations.
See Also
Get JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
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