Question

In JavaScript, it seems you can do either write:

new Date().getTime(); 

…or:

(new Date).getTime(); 

The first one is logical, but the second one seems a little unusual to me… Is there any difference between these two ways of creating a Date object, and what is the purpose of the second?

Thanks,

Steve

Answer 1

It seems that in javascript you can call constructor without parethesis. At least it works with my Firefox. So (new Date) == new Date()

Implying from that both expressions are equivalent. Alternatively you could write

(new Date()).getTime();  

Which is what I usually do.

And I think it’s just matter of personal preference. The new operator takes precedence before the . operator but the visual might suggest the other way round…