JavaScript:
Converting a date into a string
How to:
JavaScript has built-in methods to convert dates to strings. Here’s how to use them:
const now = new Date();
// toLocaleString() - local format
console.log(now.toLocaleString()); // '4/1/2023, 12:00:00 PM'
// toString() - standard format
console.log(now.toString()); // 'Sat Apr 01 2023 12:00:00 GMT+0100 (Central European Standard Time)'
// toISOString() - ISO format (great for databases/network)
console.log(now.toISOString()); // '2023-04-01T11:00:00.000Z'
Deep Dive
Back in the day, date to string conversion was a mess—no standards, just a bunch of custom functions. Thankfully, ECMAScript stepped in, standardizing the Date object in ES5 and adding the super handy toISOString() in ES5.1.
Alternatives to the native methods include libraries like moment.js and date-fns, which offer more control and time zone handling, but they add to your project’s size.
Under the hood, when you call a date-to-string method, JavaScript interacts with the system’s locale settings and timezone information to generate the string output. In contrast, toISOString() always returns a UTC time (the ‘Z’ stands for ‘Zulu time’ or zero offset from UTC).