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/[email protected]/dist/browser-bundle.js"></script>

Table of Contents

1. Motivation
2. Usage
3. Supported formats
4. Locale support
5. Adding custom formats
6. Removing parsing rules
7. Creating a custom parser
8. Unit tests
9. Contributing

Motivation

1. The APIs I consume have a lot of different date formats
2. I want to create REST APIs that accept all major formats
3. I want to handle user-input dates
4. 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 object
• Date.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');
// same as new Date(2020, 9, 15, 0, 0, 0, 0)

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');
// same as new Date(2020, 9, 15, 0, 0, 0, 0)

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');
// returns:
{
  year: 2020,
  month: 10,
  day: 15,
  hour: 18,
}

4.) There are npm packages that integrate any-date-parser directly into popular date libraries:

• Luxon: luxon-parser
• DayJS: dayjs-parser
• Moment: moment-parseplus

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 string
• template: 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(/*...*/);
// Pass locale if you want to override the detected default
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

• 16 March
• 16 Mar

month day

• 03/14
• 03-14
• 3/14
• 3-14

day month

• 14/03
• 14.03
• 14/3
• 14.3

Twitter

• Fri Apr 09 12:53:54 +0000 2010

unix timestamp

• @1602604901

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