How can I convert string to datetime with format specification in JavaScript?

Use new Date(dateString) if your string is compatible with Date.parse(). If your format is incompatible (I think it is), you have to parse the string yourself (should be easy with regular expressions) and create a new Date object with explicit values for year, month, date, hour, minute and second.

I think this can help you: http://www.mattkruse.com/javascript/date/

There's a getDateFromFormat() function that you can tweak a little to solve your problem.

Update: there's an updated version of the samples available at javascripttoolbox.com

@Christoph Mentions using a regex to tackle the problem. Here's what I'm using:

var dateString = "2010-08-09 01:02:03";
var reggie = /(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2}) (\d{2}):(\d{2}):(\d{2})/;
var dateArray = reggie.exec(dateString); 
var dateObject = new Date(
    (+dateArray[1]),
    (+dateArray[2])-1, // Careful, month starts at 0!
    (+dateArray[3]),
    (+dateArray[4]),
    (+dateArray[5]),
    (+dateArray[6])
);

It's by no means intelligent, just configure the regex and new Date(blah) to suit your needs.

Edit: Maybe a bit more understandable in ES6 using destructuring:

let dateString = "2010-08-09 01:02:03"
  , reggie = /(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2}) (\d{2}):(\d{2}):(\d{2})/
  , [, year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds] = reggie.exec(dateString)
  , dateObject = new Date(year, month-1, day, hours, minutes, seconds);

But in all honesty these days I reach for something like Moment

No sophisticated date/time formatting routines exist in JavaScript.

You will have to use an external library for formatted date output, "JavaScript Date Format" from Flagrant Badassery looks very promising.

For the input conversion, several suggestions have been made already. :)

Check out Moment.js. It is a modern and powerful library that makes up for JavaScript's woeful Date functions (or lack thereof).