Add a duration to a moment (moment.js)

Moment version: 2.0.0

After reading the docs, I thought this would be straight-forward (Chrome console):

var timestring1 = "2013-05-09T00:00:00Z";
var timestring2 = "2013-05-09T02:00:00Z";
var startdate = moment(timestring1);
var expected_enddate = moment(timestring2);
var returned_endate = startdate.add(moment.duration(2, 'hours'));
returned_endate == expected_enddate  // false
returned_endate  // Moment {_i: "2013-05-09T00:00:00Z", _f: "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss Z", _l: undefined, _isUTC: false, _a: Array[7]…}

This is a trivial example, but I can't even get it to work. I feel like I'm missing something big here, but I really don't get it. Even this this doesn't seem to work:

startdate.add(2, 'hours')
    // Moment {_i: "2013-05-09T00:00:00Z", _f: "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss Z", _l: undefined, _isUTC: false, _a: Array[7]…}

Any help would be much appreciated.

Edit: My end goal is to make an binary status chart like the one I'm working on here: http://bl.ocks.org/phobson/5872894

As you can see, I'm currently using dummy x-values while I work through this issue.

Solution 1:

I think you missed a key point in the documentation for .add()

Mutates the original moment by adding time.

You appear to be treating it as a function that returns the immutable result. Easy mistake to make. :)

If you use the return value, it is the same actual object as the one you started with. It's just returned as a convenience for method chaining.

You can work around this behavior by cloning the moment, as described here.

Also, you cannot just use == to test. You could format each moment to the same output and compare those, or you could just use the .isSame() method.

Your code is now:

var timestring1 = "2013-05-09T00:00:00Z";
var timestring2 = "2013-05-09T02:00:00Z";
var startdate = moment(timestring1);
var expected_enddate = moment(timestring2);
var returned_endate = moment(startdate).add(2, 'hours');  // see the cloning?
returned_endate.isSame(expected_enddate)  // true

Solution 2:

I am working on an application in which we track live route. Passenger wants to show current position of driver and the expected arrival time to reach at his/her location. So I need to add some duration into current time.

So I found the below mentioned way to do the same. We can add any duration(hour,minutes and seconds) in our current time by moment:

var travelTime = moment().add(642, 'seconds').format('hh:mm A');// it will add 642 seconds in the current time and will give time in 03:35 PM format

var travelTime = moment().add(11, 'minutes').format('hh:mm A');// it will add 11 mins in the current time and will give time in 03:35 PM format; can use m or minutes 

var travelTime = moment().add(2, 'hours').format('hh:mm A');// it will add 2 hours in the current time and will give time in 03:35 PM format

It fulfills my requirement. May be it can help you.

Solution 3:

For people having a startTime (like 12h:30:30) and a duration (value in minutes like 120), you can guess the endTime like so:

const startTime = '12:30:00';
const durationInMinutes = '120';

const endTime = moment(startTime, 'HH:mm:ss').add(durationInMinutes, 'minutes').format('HH:mm');

// endTime is equal to "14:30"