I'd like to get a Date object which is 30 minutes later than another Date object. How do I do it with JavaScript?
25 Answers
Using a Library
If you are doing a lot of date work, you may want to look into JavaScript date libraries like Datejs or Moment.js. For example, with Moment.js, this is simply:
var newDateObj = moment(oldDateObj).add(30, 'm').toDate();
Vanilla Javascript
This is like chaos's answer, but in one line:
var newDateObj = new Date(oldDateObj.getTime() + diff*60000);
Where diff
is the difference in minutes you want from oldDateObj
's time. It can even be negative.
Or as a reusable function, if you need to do this in multiple places:
function addMinutes(date, minutes) {
return new Date(date.getTime() + minutes*60000);
}
And just in case this is not obvious, the reason we multiply minutes by 60000
is to convert minutes to milliseconds.
Be Careful with Vanilla Javascript. Dates Are Hard!
You may think you can add 24 hours to a date to get tomorrow's date, right? Wrong!
addMinutes(myDate, 60*24); //DO NOT DO THIS
It turns out, if the user observes daylight saving time, a day is not necessarily 24 hours long. There is one day a year that is only 23 hours long, and one day a year that is 25 hours long. For example, in most of the United States and Canada, 24 hours after midnight, Nov 2, 2014, is still Nov 2:
const NOV = 10; //because JS months are off by one...
addMinutes(new Date(2014, NOV, 2), 60*24); //In USA, prints 11pm on Nov 2, not 12am Nov 3!
This is why using one of the afore-mentioned libraries is a safer bet if you have to do a lot of work with this.
Below is a more generic version of this function that I wrote. I'd still recommend using a library, but that may be overkill/impossible for your project. The syntax is modeled after MySQL DATE_ADD function.
/**
* Adds time to a date. Modelled after MySQL DATE_ADD function.
* Example: dateAdd(new Date(), 'minute', 30) //returns 30 minutes from now.
* https://stackoverflow.com/a/1214753/18511
*
* @param date Date to start with
* @param interval One of: year, quarter, month, week, day, hour, minute, second
* @param units Number of units of the given interval to add.
*/
function dateAdd(date, interval, units) {
if(!(date instanceof Date))
return undefined;
var ret = new Date(date); //don't change original date
var checkRollover = function() { if(ret.getDate() != date.getDate()) ret.setDate(0);};
switch(String(interval).toLowerCase()) {
case 'year' : ret.setFullYear(ret.getFullYear() + units); checkRollover(); break;
case 'quarter': ret.setMonth(ret.getMonth() + 3*units); checkRollover(); break;
case 'month' : ret.setMonth(ret.getMonth() + units); checkRollover(); break;
case 'week' : ret.setDate(ret.getDate() + 7*units); break;
case 'day' : ret.setDate(ret.getDate() + units); break;
case 'hour' : ret.setTime(ret.getTime() + units*3600000); break;
case 'minute' : ret.setTime(ret.getTime() + units*60000); break;
case 'second' : ret.setTime(ret.getTime() + units*1000); break;
default : ret = undefined; break;
}
return ret;
}
I always create 7 functions, to work with date in JS:addSeconds
, addMinutes
, addHours
, addDays
, addWeeks
, addMonths
, addYears
.
You can see an example here: http://jsfiddle.net/tiagoajacobi/YHA8x/
How to use:
var now = new Date();
console.log(now.addMinutes(30));
console.log(now.addWeeks(3));
These are the functions:
Date.prototype.addSeconds = function(seconds) {
this.setSeconds(this.getSeconds() + seconds);
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addMinutes = function(minutes) {
this.setMinutes(this.getMinutes() + minutes);
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addHours = function(hours) {
this.setHours(this.getHours() + hours);
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addDays = function(days) {
this.setDate(this.getDate() + days);
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addWeeks = function(weeks) {
this.addDays(weeks*7);
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addMonths = function (months) {
var dt = this.getDate();
this.setMonth(this.getMonth() + months);
var currDt = this.getDate();
if (dt !== currDt) {
this.addDays(-currDt);
}
return this;
};
Date.prototype.addYears = function(years) {
var dt = this.getDate();
this.setFullYear(this.getFullYear() + years);
var currDt = this.getDate();
if (dt !== currDt) {
this.addDays(-currDt);
}
return this;
};
The easiest way to solve is the to recognize that in javascript dates are just numbers. It starts 0
or 'Wed Dec 31 1969 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
. Every 1
represents a millisecond. You can add or subtract milliseconds by getting the value and instantiating a new date using that value. You can manage it pretty easy with that mind.
const minutesToAdjust = 10;
const millisecondsPerMinute = 60000;
const originalDate = new Date('11/20/2017 10:00 AM');
const modifiedDate1 = new Date(originalDate.valueOf() - (minutesToAdjust * millisecondsPerMinute));
const modifiedDate2 = new Date(originalDate.valueOf() + (minutesToAdjust * millisecondsPerMinute));
console.log(originalDate); // Mon Nov 20 2017 10:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
console.log(modifiedDate1); // Mon Nov 20 2017 09:50:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
console.log(modifiedDate2); // Mon Nov 20 2017 10:10:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
Stop using Moment.js
As recommended by other great answers, in most cases it's best to use a library when dealing dates. However, it's important to know that as of September 2020 Moment.js is considered legacy and should no longer be used in new projects.
Quoting Moment's statement in their official docs:
We would like to discourage Moment from being used in new projects going forward. [...] We now generally consider Moment to be a legacy project in maintenance mode. It is not dead, but it is indeed done.
Modern libraries
Below are alternatives recommended by Moment.
Luxon
Luxon can be thought of as the evolution of Moment. It is authored by Isaac Cambron, a long-time contributor to Moment. Please read Why does Luxon exist? and the For Moment users pages in the Luxon documentation.
- Locales:
Intl
provided - Time Zones:
Intl
provided
import {DateTime} from 'luxon'
function addMinutes(date, minutes) {
return DateTime.fromJSDate(date).plus({minutes}).toJSDate()
}
Day.js
Day.js is designed to be a minimalist replacement for Moment.js, using a similar API. It is not a drop-in replacement, but if you are used to using Moment's API and want to get moving quickly, consider using Day.js.
- Locales: Custom data files that can be individually imported
- Time Zones:
Intl
provided, via a plugin
import dayjs from 'dayjs'
function addMinutes(date, minutes) {
return dayjs(date).add(minutes, 'minutes').toDate()
}
date-fns
Date-fns offers a series of functions for manipulating JavaScript Date
objects. For more details, scroll to "Why date-fns?" on the date-fns home page.
- Locales: Custom data files that can be individually imported
- Time Zones:
Intl
provided, via a separate companion library
import {addMinutes} from 'date-fns'
function addMinutesDemo(date, minutes) {
return addMinutes(date, minutes)
}
js-Joda
js-Joda is a JavaScript port of Java's Three-Ten Backport, which is the base for JSR-310 implementation of the Java SE 8 java.time
package. If you are familiar with java.time
, Joda-Time, or Noda Time, you will find js-Joda comparable.
- Locales: Custom data files via add-on module
- Time Zones: Custom data files via add-on module
import {LocalDateTime, nativeJs, convert} from '@js-joda/core'
function addMinutes(date, minutes) {
return convert(
LocalDateTime.from(
nativeJs(date)
).plusMinutes(minutes)
).toDate()
}
I feel many of the answers here are lacking a creative component, very much needed for time travel computations. I present my solution for a temporal translation of 30 minutes.
(jsfiddle here)
function fluxCapacitor(n) {
var delta,sigma=0,beta="ge";
(function(K,z){
(function(a,b,c){
beta=beta+"tT";
switch(b.shift()) {
case'3':return z('0',a,c,b.shift(),1);
case'0':return z('3',a,c,b.pop());
case'5':return z('2',a,c,b[0],1);
case'1':return z('4',a,c,b.shift());
case'2':return z('5',a,c,b.pop());
case'4':return z('1',a,c,b.pop(),1);
}
})(K.pop(),K.pop().split(''),K.pop());
})(n.toString().split(':'),function(b,a,c,b1,gamma){
delta=[c,b+b1,a];sigma+=gamma?3600000:0;
beta=beta+"im";
});
beta=beta+"e";
return new Date (sigma+(new Date( delta.join(':')))[beta]());
}
Use an existing library known to handle the quirks involved in dealing with time calculations. My current favorite is moment.js.
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.13.0/moment.js"></script>
<script>
var now = moment(); // get "now"
console.log(now.toDate()); // show original date
var thirty = moment(now).add(30,"minutes"); // clone "now" object and add 30 minutes, taking into account weirdness like crossing DST boundries or leap-days, -minutes, -seconds.
console.log(thirty.toDate()); // show new date
</script>
For the lazy like myself:
Kip's answer (from above) in coffeescript, using an "enum", and operating on the same object:
Date.UNIT =
YEAR: 0
QUARTER: 1
MONTH: 2
WEEK: 3
DAY: 4
HOUR: 5
MINUTE: 6
SECOND: 7
Date::add = (unit, quantity) ->
switch unit
when Date.UNIT.YEAR then @setFullYear(@getFullYear() + quantity)
when Date.UNIT.QUARTER then @setMonth(@getMonth() + (3 * quantity))
when Date.UNIT.MONTH then @setMonth(@getMonth() + quantity)
when Date.UNIT.WEEK then @setDate(@getDate() + (7 * quantity))
when Date.UNIT.DAY then @setDate(@getDate() + quantity)
when Date.UNIT.HOUR then @setTime(@getTime() + (3600000 * quantity))
when Date.UNIT.MINUTE then @setTime(@getTime() + (60000 * quantity))
when Date.UNIT.SECOND then @setTime(@getTime() + (1000 * quantity))
else throw new Error "Unrecognized unit provided"
@ # for chaining
I know that the topic is way too old. But I am pretty sure that there are some developpers who still need this, so I made this simple script for you. I hope you enjoy it!
Hello back, It's 2020 and I've added some modification hope it will help a lot better now!
function strtotime(date, addTime){
let generatedTime=date.getTime();
if(addTime.seconds) generatedTime+=1000*addTime.seconds; //check for additional seconds
if(addTime.minutes) generatedTime+=1000*60*addTime.minutes;//check for additional minutes
if(addTime.hours) generatedTime+=1000*60*60*addTime.hours;//check for additional hours
return new Date(generatedTime);
}
Date.prototype.strtotime = function(addTime){
return strtotime(new Date(), addTime);
}
let futureDate = new Date().strtotime({
hours: 16, //Adding one hour
minutes: 45, //Adding fourty five minutes
seconds: 0 //Adding 0 seconds return to not adding any second so we can remove it.
});
<button onclick="console.log(futureDate)">Travel to the future</button>
date.setMinutes(date.getMinutes() + ...)
will fail crossing over Daylight Saving boundaries. For example (assuming '2014-03-09' is a Daylight Saving boundary):var d = new Date('2014-03-09 01:59:00'), f = new Date(d.getTime()); d.setMinutes(d.getMinutes() + 30);
d
is now 30 minutes earlier, not later, thanf
. – Spigf
andd
, you'll see one says "GMT-0500" the other says "GMT-0400" (or whatever your time zone is). Also, if you call.getTime()
on bothf
andd
, you'll see thatf
is larger thand
(i.e. later). – Kip01:89
would become02:29
, which doesn't exist on the day you "spring forward". Chrome decides that should be01:29
, FF decides on03:29
. On the night when you "fall back", both browsers skip the "fall back" hour and jump ahead by 90 minutes, to02:29
. Here are some JSFiddle demos: "spring forward" / "fall back" – Kip