JavaScript Date - Yagisanatode

Let’s say that you receive a date like “14/01/2022”, “14 January 2022”, “Jan, 14 2022” etc, and you need to convert this date to an ISO string in JavaScript while ensuring that the date that is inputted is for UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) timezone – no matter where you are in the world. It would seem easy right?

Your first reaction might be to simply do something like this:

const dateString = "14 Jan 2022"; // U.S. peeps <em>"Jan, 14 2022"</em>

const IsoDateString = new Date(dateString).toISOString();

const dateString = "14 Jan 2022"; // U.S. peeps <em>"Jan, 14 2022"</em>

const IsoDateString = new Date(dateString).toISOString();

Now unless you are sitting smack-dab in a UTC timezone you might be in for a bit of a surprise.

Right now, my timezone is UTC+11 hours. This means that my result of the code in the example above will report the previous day at 1pm UTC.

console.log(IsoDateString);

//RESULT: 2022-01-13T13:00:00.000Z

console.log(IsoDateString);

//RESULT: 2022-01-13T13:00:00.000Z

That’s not what I am looking for all. I need to set this date to precisely midnight of 14 Jan 2022 UTC time.

The ISO String we need is this: 2022-01-14T00:00:00.000Z

The Solution

Continue reading “Create a ISO String from date text input intended for UTC date in JavaScript”

Recently, I thought it would be a cool idea to add a date-time stamp to the end of a Google Doc checklist item with Google Apps Script. So I knew when I completed a task.

I often share a project Google Doc with clients and then add my tasks to the document list. With Google’s new check box list item, I wanted to add the date and time that I completed the task when I checked the box.

The bad news is that there is no onEdit() trigger (like in Google Sheets) for the DocumentApp class that would listen for an edit of the document and see a change of the checked box from unchecked to checked and then apply the date-time stamp. 😢

All good, I settled for the next best thing! A menu item.

Take a quick look at the results.