How to compare two timestamps in JavaScript

This is a short and simple guide on how to compare two dates in JavaScript. This is useful if you need to figure out which date is greater or which date occurred first.

Firstly, let’s create two JavaScript Date objects:

//Example date one. var dateOne = new Date('2019-01-01'); //Example date two. var dateTwo = new Date('2012-03-02');

As you can see, the first date is greater than the second date because it occurred nearly seven years later. However, what if we need to compare these two dates using JavaScript?

The getTime() method.

The getTime() method allows us to get the Unix Timestamp of a Date object. This method will return the number of milliseconds that have passed between the “Unix Epoch” and the date in question. Essentially, it will give us a numerical value that we can do some quick comparisons with.

Take a look at the following JavaScript code:

//Our IF / ELSE statement, which compares the dates //and prints the comparison results to the console. if(dateOne.getTime() > dateTwo.getTime()){ console.log('The first date is greater than the second date.'); console.log('The first date occurs after the second date.'); } else if(dateOne.getTime() > dateTwo.getTime()){ console.log('The second date is greater than first date'); console.log('The second date occurs after the first date.'); } else{ console.log('These two dates are the same.'); }

Above, I created a simple IF/ELSE statement that compares the Unix Timestamp of each Date object. If the timestamp of date one is greater than the timestamp of date two, then it means that date one occurred later. This is because more milliseconds have passed between the Unix Epoch and date one than the Unix Epoch and date two.

If you run the code snippet above, you will see that the first IF statement is proven TRUE and that the following output is logged to the browser’s console:

The first date is greater than the second date. The first date occurs after the second date.

This is because the date “2019-01-01” is greater than “2012-03-02”.

By the way, there is no need to stick to the YYYYMMDD format. You can also create a Date object using a date string like so:

//Creating a Date object using a different string format. var myDate = new Date('April 20, 2015');

Note that the getTime() method is also useful because it will return the timestamp in a UTC format. This means that we shouldn’t run into any annoying issues with timezones while comparing dates.

That’s it! Feel free to modify the dates above and see how it changes the console output!

How to compare two timestamps in JavaScript
Photo by Lon Christensen on Unsplash

Comparing 2 dates is something we’ve to do often in a JavaScript app.

In this article, we’ll look at how to compare 2 dates with JavaScript.

Comparing Timestamps

One easy way to compare 2 dates is to compare their timestamps.

We can get the timestamp with the getTime method.

For instance, we can write:

getTime returns the UNIX epoch in seconds.

It’s time number of seconds since January 1, 1970 midnight UTC.

We can also write:

which replaces getTime with the + before the date objects.

It does the same thing as getTime .

Relational Operators

We can use relational operators directly with date objects.

For instance, we can write:

to compare them directly with the relational operators.

d1 and d2 will be converted to timestamps before comparing.

Subtracting Dates

We can also subtract one date from another and compare the result to what we want.

For instance, we can write:

This works because d1 and d2 are converted to timestamps before we subtract them.

Comparing Year, Month, and Date

We can compare the year, month, and day of 2 date objects to check if they’re the same to determine if they’re the same date.

For instance, we can write:

getFullYear returns the 4 digit year number.

getDate returns the date.

And getMonth returns the month from 0 to 11. 0 is January, 1 is February, etc.

Conclusion

We can compare 2 dates easily with JavaScript by converting them to numbers with various operators.

Then we can compare them.

We can also compare their year, month, and day values individually.

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Javascript Data Type How to - Compare two timestamps. Website Home; HOME; Index; Javascript Data Type How to; We would like to know how to compare two timestamps.

However, what if we need to compare these two dates using JavaScript? The getTime () method. The getTime () method allows us to get the Unix Timestamp of a Date object. This method will return the number of milliseconds that have passed between the “Unix Epoch” and the date in question.

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See the Pen JavaScript - Get time differences in minutes between two dates-date-ex-44 by w3resource (@w3resource) on CodePen. Improve this sample solution and post your code through Disqus. Previous: Write a JavaScript function to add specified months to a date. Next: Write a JavaScript function to get time differences in hours between two dates.

Can someone suggest a way to compare the values of two dates greater than, less than, and not in the past using JavaScript? The values will be coming from text boxes. Answer 1 The Date object will do what you want - construct one for each date, then compare them using the >, <, <= or >=.

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A jQuery based Date Duration Calculator that displays the number of days, weeks, months and years between two dates you specify. Dependencies: jQuery; Bootstrap; Bootstrap Dropdown Select; How to use it: 1. Include jQuery, Bootstrap and Bootstrap select's files on your webpage.

See the Pen JavaScript - Get time differences in years between two dates-date-ex-49 by w3resource (@w3resource) on CodePen. Improve this sample solution and post your code through Disqus. Previous: Write a JavaScript function to get time differences in months between two dates. Next: Write a JavaScript function to get the week start date.

thats simple substract todays date from the date the user enters in the text box. What you get is difference between two dates in milli seconds divide it with 1000 to get the period in seconds again divide with 60 toget in minits, again with 60 to get it in hours now with 24 to get it in days then with 365 to get the users age.

To calculate the minutes difference between two dates, we should divide the diffInMilliSeconds with 60 seconds) and then get the remainder by dividing it by 60 (60 minutes per hour). After that, subtract the diffInMilliSeconds with the number of minutes in milliseconds (minutes * 60).

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To calculate the number of days difference between two objects, we should divide the diffInMilliSeconds (time difference in milliseconds) with 86400 (which is the number of seconds per day).

See the Pen JavaScript - Get time differences in hours between two dates-date-ex-45 by w3resource (@w3resource) on CodePen. Improve this sample solution and post your code through Disqus. Previous: Write a JavaScript function to get time differences in minutes between two dates.

And using the following formula (return type as Number (2,0)) to use make it as number outcome as difference between these two time (text) fields. VALUE (TEXT (Hours__c) + '.'+ TEXT (Minutes__c)) This may help some one else in the future.! Please give kudos by clicking on the star icon, if you found this answer as helpful.

Set the Display and Edit patterns to 'time{HH:MM}' for each field (without quotes). It wont calculate correctly if the finish time is before the start time. Eg: From 15:00 To 00:30 won't give the right answer. A date would need to be added to calculate it properly.

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