README
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/any-date-parser@1.5.1/dist/browser-bundle.js"></script>
Table of Contents
- Motivation
- Usage
- Supported formats
- Locale support
- Adding custom formats
- Removing parsing rules
- Creating a custom parser
- Unit tests
- Contributing
Motivation
- The APIs I consume have a lot of different date formats
- I want to create REST APIs that accept all major formats
- I want to handle user-input dates
- 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 aDate
objectDate.fromAny(any, locale)
- Return aDate
object given aDate
,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 aDate
object. It is the same function as in option 1.parser.fromAny(any, locale)
- Return aDate
object given aDate
,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
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 stringtemplate
: 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_)