any-date-parser
Parse a wide range of date formats including human-input dates.
Supports Node, IE11+ and evergreen browsers.
Installation
npm install any-date-parser
OR
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/any-date-parser@1.5.4/dist/browser-bundle.js"></script>
Table of Contents
- Motivation
- Usage
- Supported formats
- Locale support
- Adding custom formats
- Removing parsing rules
- Creating a custom parser
- Unit tests
- Contributing
Motivation
- The APIs I consume have a lot of different date formats
- I want to create REST APIs that accept all major formats
- I want to handle user-input dates
- I want to support dates in other languages according to JavaScript's new
Intl
global object
Usage
There are three ways to use any-date-parser:
1.) Use a new function directly on Date
:
Date.fromString(string, locale)
- Parses a string and returns a Date
objectDate.fromAny(any, locale)
- Return a Date
object given a Date
, Number
or string to parse
Example:
require('any-date-parser');
Date.fromString('2020-10-15');
2.) Use the parser object:
parser.fromString(string, locale)
- Parses a string and returns a Date
object. It is the same function as in option 1.parser.fromAny(any, locale)
- Return a Date
object given a Date
,
Number
or string to parse. It is the same function as in option 1.
Example:
const parser = require('any-date-parser');
parser.fromString('2020-10-15');
3.) It also exports parser
with function parser.attempt(string, locale)
that
returns an object with one or more integer values for the following keys: year,
month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, offset. Example:
const parser = require('any-date-parser');
parser.attempt('15 Oct 2020 at 6pm');
{
year: 2020,
month: 10,
day: 15,
hour: 18,
}
4.) There are npm packages that integrate any-date-parser directly into popular
date libraries:
Supported formats
Summary:
- 24 hour time
- 12 hour time
- timezone offsets
- timezone abbreviations
- year month day
- year monthname day
- month day year
- monthname day year
- day month year
- day monthname year
- +/-/ago periods
- now/today/yesterday/tomorrow
- Twitter
Exhaustive list of date formats
Locale Support
any-date-parser supports any locale that your runtime's Intl
(ECMAScript
Internationalization API) supports. In browsers that usually means the operating
system language. In Node, that means the compiled language or the icu modules
included. For unit tests, this library uses the
full-icu npm package to make all locales
available. That package is heavy and is not included as a dependency.
Adding custom formats
any-date-parser has an addFormat()
function to add a custom parser.
First, parsers must have matcher
or template
.
matcher
: A RegExp to match a stringtemplate
: A string with template variables such as _YEAR_
_MONTH_
etc.
that will be converted to a regular expression
Second, parsers must have units
or handler
.
units
: An array of unit strings to fit matches into (year, month, day, etc.)handler
: A function that takes matches and returns an object with keys year,
month, day etc.
Example 1: matcher + units
const parser,
{ Format } = require('any-date-parser');
parser.addFormat(
new Format({
matcher: /^(\d+) days? into month (\d+) in year (\d{4})$/,
units: ['day', 'month', 'year'],
})
);
Keep in mind that \d
does not support other numbering system such as Chinese
or Bengali. To support those you can use the template
option given in
example 3 and
example 4.
Example 2: matcher + handler
const parser,
{ Format } = require('any-date-parser');
parser.addFormat(
new Format({
matcher: /^Q([1-4]) (\d{4})$/,
handler: function ([, quarter, year]) {
const monthByQuarter = { 1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 7, 4: 10 };
const month = monthByQuarter[quarter];
return { year, month };
},
})
);
Example 3: template + units
const parser,
{ Format } = require('any-date-parser');
parser.addFormat(
new Format({
template: 'The (_DAY_)(?:_ORDINAL_) day of (_MONTH_), (_YEAR_)',
units: ['day', 'month', 'year'],
})
);
Example 4: template + handler
const parser,
{ Format } = require('any-date-parser');
parser.addFormat(
new Format({
template: '^Q([1-4]) (_YEAR_)$',
handler: function ([, quarter, year]) {
const monthByQuarter = { 1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 7, 4: 10 };
const month = monthByQuarter[quarter];
return { year, month };
},
})
);
Removing parsing rules
To remove support for a certain format, use removeFormat()
const parser = require('any-date-parser');
const dayMonth = require('any-date-parser/src/formats/dayMonth/dayMonth.js');
parser.removeFormat(dayMonth);
Creating a custom parser
To create a new parser with a limited list of formats or your own custom
formats, use new Parser
const { Parser } = require('any-date-parser');
const time24Hours = require('any-date-parser/src/formats/time24Hours/time24Hours.js');
const yearMonthDay = require('any-date-parser/src/formats/yearMonthDay/yearMonthDay.js');
const ago = require('any-date-parser/src/formats/ago/ago.js');
const parser = new Parser();
parser.addFormats([time24Hours, yearMonthDay, ago]);
You can convert your custom parser to a function. For example:
const { Parser } = require('any-date-parser');
const parser = new Parser();
parser.addFormats();
Date.fromString = parser.exportAsFunction();
Date.fromAny = parser.exportAsFunctionAny();
Unit tests
any-date-parser
has 100% code coverage.
Testing
- To run tests, run
npm test
- To check coverage, run
npm run coverage
- Note - npm test will attempt to install full-icu and luxon globally if not
present
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. Please open a GitHub ticket for bugs or feature
requests. Please make a pull request for any fixes or new code you'd like to be
incorporated.
Exhaustive list of date formats
24 hour time (any date format followed by a 24-hour time expression)
- 2020-10-06 17:41:28
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28Z
- 17:41:28
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28.999Z
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28.999999Z
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28.999999999Z
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28 MST
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28 Eastern Daylight Time
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28 GMT+03:00
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28 GMT-9
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28-09:00
- 2020-10-06T17:41:28+0900
12 hour time (any date format followed by a 12-hour time expression)
- March 14, 2015 at 9:26:53 am
- 14 Mar 2015 9:26:53 a.m.
- 9:26:53am
- 9:26pm
- 9pm
year month day
- 2016-09-24
- 2016-9-24
- 20160924
day monthname year
- Wednesday, 01 January 2020
- Wednesday 01 January 2020
- Wed, 01 January 2020
- Wed 01 January 2020
- 01 January 2020
- 01-January-2020
- 1 Jan 2020
- 1-Jan-2020
- 01 Jan 20
- 1 Jan 20
monthname day year
- Sunday, March 27 2016
- Sunday March 27 2016
- Sun, March 27 2016
- Sun March 27 2016
- March 27 2016
- Mar 27, 2016
- Mar 27 2016
month day year
- 03/14/2020
- 03-14-2020
- 3/14/2020
- 3-14-2020
- 03/14/20
- 03-14-20
day month year
- 14/03/2020
- 14.03.2020
- 14/3/2020
- 14.3.2020
- 14/03/20
- 14.03.20
- 14/3/20
- 14.3.20
relative time
- 5 minutes ago
- -8 months
- in 13 days
- +21 weeks
monthname day
- Sunday, June 28
- Sunday June 28
- Sun, June 28
- Sun June 28
- June 28
- Jun 28
day monthname
month day
day month
Twitter
- Fri Apr 09 12:53:54 +0000 2010
unix timestamp
Microsoft JSON date string
/Date(1601677889008-0700)/
/Date(1601677889008)/
chinese
2020年09月26日
2020年9月26日
2020 年 9 月 26 日
2017年08月31日