The Book of JavaScript, 2nd Edition

Writing the Date to Your Web Page

Now that you know about variables and functions, you can print the date to your web page. To do so, you must first ask JavaScript to check the local time on your visitor's computer clock:

var now = new Date();

The first part of this line, var now =, should look familiar. It sets the variable now to some value. The second part, new Date(), is new; it creates an object.

Objects store data that require multiple pieces of information, such as a particular moment in time. For example, in JavaScript you need an object to describe 2:30 pm on Saturday, January 7, 2006, in San Francisco. That's because it requires many different bits of information: the time, day, month, date, and year, as well as some representation (in ...