Converting milliseconds to a date (jQuery/JavaScript)

I'm a bit of a rambler, but I'll try to keep this clear -

I'm bored, so I'm working on a "shoutbox", and I'm a little confused over one thing. I want to get the time that a message is entered, and I want to make sure I'm getting the server time, or at least make sure I'm not getting the local time of the user. I know it doesn't matter, since this thing won't be used by anyone besides me, but I want to be thorough. I've looked around and tested a few things, and I think the only way to do this is to get the milliseconds since January 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC, since that'd be the same for everyone.

I'm doing that like so:

var time = new Date();
var time = time.getTime();

That returns a number like 1294862756114.

Is there a way to convert 1294862756114 to a more readable date, like DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS?

So, basically, I'm looking for JavaScript's equivalent of PHP's date(); function.

Solution 1:

var time = new Date().getTime(); // get your number
var date = new Date(time); // create Date object

console.log(date.toString()); // result: Wed Jan 12 2011 12:42:46 GMT-0800 (PST)

Solution 2:

If you want custom formatting for your date I offer a simple function for it:

var now = new Date;
console.log( now.customFormat( "#DD#/#MM#/#YYYY# #hh#:#mm#:#ss#" ) );

Here are the tokens supported:

token:     description:             example:
#YYYY#     4-digit year             1999
#YY#       2-digit year             99
#MMMM#     full month name          February
#MMM#      3-letter month name      Feb
#MM#       2-digit month number     02
#M#        month number             2
#DDDD#     full weekday name        Wednesday
#DDD#      3-letter weekday name    Wed
#DD#       2-digit day number       09
#D#        day number               9
#th#       day ordinal suffix       nd
#hhhh#     2-digit 24-based hour    17
#hhh#      military/24-based hour   17
#hh#       2-digit hour             05
#h#        hour                     5
#mm#       2-digit minute           07
#m#        minute                   7
#ss#       2-digit second           09
#s#        second                   9
#ampm#     "am" or "pm"             pm
#AMPM#     "AM" or "PM"             PM

And here's the code:

//*** This code is copyright 2002-2016 by Gavin Kistner, [email protected]
//*** It is covered under the license viewable at http://phrogz.net/JS/_ReuseLicense.txt
Date.prototype.customFormat = function(formatString){
  var YYYY,YY,MMMM,MMM,MM,M,DDDD,DDD,DD,D,hhhh,hhh,hh,h,mm,m,ss,s,ampm,AMPM,dMod,th;
  YY = ((YYYY=this.getFullYear())+"").slice(-2);
  MM = (M=this.getMonth()+1)<10?('0'+M):M;
  MMM = (MMMM=["January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December"][M-1]).substring(0,3);
  DD = (D=this.getDate())<10?('0'+D):D;
  DDD = (DDDD=["Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday"][this.getDay()]).substring(0,3);
  th=(D>=10&&D<=20)?'th':((dMod=D%10)==1)?'st':(dMod==2)?'nd':(dMod==3)?'rd':'th';
  formatString = formatString.replace("#YYYY#",YYYY).replace("#YY#",YY).replace("#MMMM#",MMMM).replace("#MMM#",MMM).replace("#MM#",MM).replace("#M#",M).replace("#DDDD#",DDDD).replace("#DDD#",DDD).replace("#DD#",DD).replace("#D#",D).replace("#th#",th);
  h=(hhh=this.getHours());
  if (h==0) h=24;
  if (h>12) h-=12;
  hh = h<10?('0'+h):h;
  hhhh = hhh<10?('0'+hhh):hhh;
  AMPM=(ampm=hhh<12?'am':'pm').toUpperCase();
  mm=(m=this.getMinutes())<10?('0'+m):m;
  ss=(s=this.getSeconds())<10?('0'+s):s;
  return formatString.replace("#hhhh#",hhhh).replace("#hhh#",hhh).replace("#hh#",hh).replace("#h#",h).replace("#mm#",mm).replace("#m#",m).replace("#ss#",ss).replace("#s#",s).replace("#ampm#",ampm).replace("#AMPM#",AMPM);
};