How to convert a full date to a short date in javascript?
date, formatting, javascript
Solution
The `getDay()` method returns a number to indicate the day in week (0=Sun, 1=Mon, ... 6=Sat). Use `getDate()` to return a number for the day in month:
var day = convertedStartDate.getDate();
If you like, you can try to add a custom format function to the prototype of the `Date` object:
Date.prototype.formatMMDDYYYY = function(){
return (this.getMonth() + 1) +
"/" + this.getDate() +
"/" + this.getFullYear();
}
After doing this, you can call `formatMMDDYYY()` on any instance of the `Date` object. Of course, this is just a very specific example, and if you really need it, you can write a generic formatting function that would do this based on a formatting string, kinda like java's SimpleDateeFormat (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html)
(tangent: the `Date` object always confuses me... `getYear()` vs `getFullYear()`, `getDate()` vs `getDay()`, `getDate()` ranges from 1..31, but `getMonth()` from 0..11
It's a mess, and I always need to take a peek. http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_date.asp)
Problem
I have a date like this Monday, January 9, 2010 I now want to convert it to 1/9/2010 mm/dd/yyyy I tried to do this ``` var startDate = "Monday, January 9, 2010"; var convertedStartDate = new Date(startDate); var month = convertedStartDate.getMonth() + 1 var day = convertedStartDate.getDay(); var year = convertedStartDate.getFullYear(); var shortStartDate = month + "/" + day + "/" + year; ``` However it must be thinking the date is in a different format since day returns 1 instead of 9.