JavaScript:
Parsing a date from a string

How to:

JavaScript natively offers the Date.parse() method and the Date constructor to parse date strings. However, these approaches have limitations and inconsistencies across different browsers, especially with non-standard date formats. To address these issues, third-party libraries like Moment.js and date-fns are popular for their robustness and ease of use.

Using native JavaScript:

const dateString = "2023-04-30T14:55:00";
const dateObj = new Date(dateString);

console.log(dateObj);  // Output: Sun Apr 30 2023 14:55:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Using Moment.js:

First, install Moment.js via npm or include it in your project. Then:

const moment = require('moment');

const dateString = "2023-04-30T14:55:00";
const dateObj = moment(dateString);

console.log(dateObj.toString());  // Output: Sun Apr 30 2023 14:55:00 GMT+0000

Using date-fns:

After adding date-fns to your project, parse a date string like so:

const { parseISO } = require('date-fns');

const dateString = "2023-04-30T14:55:00";
const dateObj = parseISO(dateString);

console.log(dateObj);  // Output: 2023-04-30T14:55:00.000Z

Both Moment.js and date-fns provide more comprehensive parsing capabilities, including handling a variety of formats and locales, which makes them preferable for complex applications.