Question

I want to get current time in a specific format with javascript.

With the function below and calling it will give me
Fri Feb 01 2013 13:56:40 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
but I want to format it like
Friday 2:00pm
1 Feb 2013

var d = new Date();
var x = document.getElementById("time");
x.innerHTML = d;

Of course, code above doesn’t have any formatting logic but I have not come across with any “working” formatters yet.

Answer 1

A JavaScript Date has several methods allowing you to extract its parts:

getFullYear() – Returns the 4-digit year
getMonth() – Returns a zero-based integer (0-11) representing the month of the year.
getDate() – Returns the day of the month (1-31).
getDay() – Returns the day of the week (0-6). 0 is Sunday, 6 is Saturday.
getHours() – Returns the hour of the day (0-23).
getMinutes() – Returns the minute (0-59).
getSeconds() – Returns the second (0-59).
getMilliseconds() – Returns the milliseconds (0-999).
getTimezoneOffset() – Returns the number of minutes between the machine local time and UTC.

There are no built-in methods allowing you to get localized strings like “Friday”, “February”, or “PM”. You have to code that yourself. To get the string you want, you at least need to store string representations of days and months:

var months = ["Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"];
var days = ["Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"];

Then, put it together using the methods above:

var months = ["Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"];
var days = ["Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"];
var d = new Date();
var day = days[d.getDay()];
var hr = d.getHours();
var min = d.getMinutes();
if (min < 10) {
    min = "0" + min;
}
var ampm = "am";
if( hr > 12 ) {
    hr -= 12;
    ampm = "pm";
}
var date = d.getDate();
var month = months[d.getMonth()];
var year = d.getFullYear();
var x = document.getElementById("time");
x.innerHTML = day + " " + hr + ":" + min + ampm + " " + date + " " + month + " " + year;

<span id="time"></span>

I have a date format function I like to include in my standard library. It takes a format string parameter that defines the desired output. The format strings are loosely based on .Net custom Date and Time format strings. For the format you specified the following format string would work: "dddd h:mmtt d MMM yyyy".

var d = new Date();
var x = document.getElementById("time");
x.innerHTML = formatDate(d, "dddd h:mmtt d MMM yyyy");

Demo: jsfiddle.net/BNkkB/1

Here is my full date formatting function:

function formatDate(date, format, utc) {
    var MMMM = ["\x00", "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"];
    var MMM = ["\x01", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"];
    var dddd = ["\x02", "Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"];
    var ddd = ["\x03", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat"];

    function ii(i, len) {
        var s = i + "";
        len = len || 2;
        while (s.length < len) s = "0" + s;
        return s;
    }

    var y = utc ? date.getUTCFullYear() : date.getFullYear();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])yyyy+/g, "$1" + y);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])yy/g, "$1" + y.toString().substr(2, 2));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])y/g, "$1" + y);

    var M = (utc ? date.getUTCMonth() : date.getMonth()) + 1;
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])MMMM+/g, "$1" + MMMM[0]);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])MMM/g, "$1" + MMM[0]);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])MM/g, "$1" + ii(M));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])M/g, "$1" + M);

    var d = utc ? date.getUTCDate() : date.getDate();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])dddd+/g, "$1" + dddd[0]);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])ddd/g, "$1" + ddd[0]);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])dd/g, "$1" + ii(d));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])d/g, "$1" + d);

    var H = utc ? date.getUTCHours() : date.getHours();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])HH+/g, "$1" + ii(H));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])H/g, "$1" + H);

    var h = H > 12 ? H - 12 : H == 0 ? 12 : H;
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])hh+/g, "$1" + ii(h));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])h/g, "$1" + h);

    var m = utc ? date.getUTCMinutes() : date.getMinutes();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])mm+/g, "$1" + ii(m));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])m/g, "$1" + m);

    var s = utc ? date.getUTCSeconds() : date.getSeconds();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])ss+/g, "$1" + ii(s));
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])s/g, "$1" + s);

    var f = utc ? date.getUTCMilliseconds() : date.getMilliseconds();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])fff+/g, "$1" + ii(f, 3));
    f = Math.round(f / 10);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])ff/g, "$1" + ii(f));
    f = Math.round(f / 10);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])f/g, "$1" + f);

    var T = H < 12 ? "AM" : "PM";
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])TT+/g, "$1" + T);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])T/g, "$1" + T.charAt(0));

    var t = T.toLowerCase();
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])tt+/g, "$1" + t);
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])t/g, "$1" + t.charAt(0));

    var tz = -date.getTimezoneOffset();
    var K = utc || !tz ? "Z" : tz > 0 ? "+" : "-";
    if (!utc) {
        tz = Math.abs(tz);
        var tzHrs = Math.floor(tz / 60);
        var tzMin = tz % 60;
        K += ii(tzHrs) + ":" + ii(tzMin);
    }
    format = format.replace(/(^|[^\\])K/g, "$1" + K);

    var day = (utc ? date.getUTCDay() : date.getDay()) + 1;
    format = format.replace(new RegExp(dddd[0], "g"), dddd[day]);
    format = format.replace(new RegExp(ddd[0], "g"), ddd[day]);

    format = format.replace(new RegExp(MMMM[0], "g"), MMMM[M]);
    format = format.replace(new RegExp(MMM[0], "g"), MMM[M]);

    format = format.replace(/\\(.)/g, "$1");

    return format;
};