time

node-time

"time.h" bindings for Node.js.

This module offers simple bindings for the C time.h APIs. It also offers an extended native Date object with getTimezone() and setTimezone() functions, which aren't normally part of JavaScript.

Installation

node-time is available through npm:

$ npm install time

Example

var time = require('time');
 
// Create a new Date instance, representing the current instant in time
var now = new time.Date();
 
now.setTimezone("America/Los_Angeles");
// `.getDate()`, `.getDay()`, `.getHours()`, etc.
// will return values according to UTC-8
 
now.setTimezone("America/New_York");
// `.getDate()`, `.getDay()`, `.getHours()`, etc.
// will return values according to UTC-5
 
 
// You can also set the timezone during instantiation
var azDate = new time.Date(2010, 0, 1, 'America/Phoenix');
azDate.getTimezone(); // 'America/Phoenix'

Extending the global Date object

node-time provides a convenient time.Date object, which is its own Date constructor independent from your own (or the global) Date object. There are often times, however, when you would like the benefits of node-time on all Date instances. To extend the global Date object, simply pass it in as an argument to the node-time module when requiring:

var time = require('time')(Date);
 
var d = new Date();
d.setTimezone('UTC');

API

Date() -> Date

new time.Date()

new time.Date(millisecondsFromUTC)

new time.Date(dateString [, timezone ])

new time.Date(year, month, day [, hour, minute, second, millisecond ] [, timezone ])

A special Date constructor that returns a "super" Date instance, that has magic timezone capabilities! You can also pass a timezone as the last argument in order to have a Date instance in the specified timezone.

var now = new time.Date();
var another = new time.Date('Aug 9, 1995', 'UTC');
var more = new time.Date(1970, 0, 1, 'Europe/Amsterdam');

date.setTimezone(timezone [, relative ]) -> Undefined

Sets the timezone for the Date instance. By default this function makes it so that calls to getHours(), getDays(), getMinutes(), etc. will be relative to the timezone specified. If you pass true in as the second argument, then instead of adjusting the local "get" functions to match the specified timezone, instead the internal state of the Date instance is changed, such that the local "get" functions retain their values from before the setTimezone call.

date.setTimezone("America/Argentina/San_Juan")
 
// Default behavior:
a = new time.Date()
a.toString()
// 'Wed Aug 31 2011 09:45:31 GMT-0700 (PDT)'
a.setTimezone('UTC')
a.toString()
// 'Wed Aug 31 2011 16:45:31 GMT+0000 (UTC)'
 
// Relative behavior:
b = new time.Date()
b.toString()
// 'Wed Aug 31 2011 10:48:03 GMT-0700 (PDT)'
b.setTimezone('UTC', true)
b.toString()
// 'Wed Aug 31 2011 10:48:03 GMT+0000 (UTC)'

date.getTimezone() -> String

Returns a String containing the currently configured timezone for the date instance. This must be called after setTimezone() has been called.

date.getTimezone();
  // "America/Argentina/San_Juan"

date.getTimezoneAbbr() -> String

Returns the abbreviated timezone name, also taking daylight savings into consideration. Useful for the presentation layer of a Date instance.

date.getTimezoneAbbr();
  // "ART"

Date.parse(dateStr [, timezone ]) -> Number

Same as the native JavaScript Date.parse() function, only this version allows for a second, optional, timezone argument, which specifies the timezone in which the date string parsing will be resolved against. This function is also aliased as time.parse().

time.Date.parse("1970, January 1");  // <- Local Time
  // 28800000
time.Date.parse("1970, January 1", "Europe/Copenhagen");
  // -3600000
time.Date.parse("1970, January 1", "UTC");
  // 0

extend(date) -> Date

Transforms a "regular" Date instance into one of node-time's "extended" Date instances.

var d = new Date();
// `d.setTimezone()` does not exist...
time.extend(d);
d.setTimezone("UTC");

time() -> Number

Binding for time(). Returns the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1900 UTC. These two are equivalent:

time.time();
  // 1299827226
Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);
  // 1299827226

tzset(timezone) -> Object

Binding for tzset(). Sets up the timezone information that localtime() will use based on the specified timezone variable, or the current process.env.TZ value if none is specified. Returns an Object containing information about the newly set timezone, or throws an Error if no timezone information could be loaded for the specified timezone.

time.tzset('US/Pacific');
  // { tzname: [ 'PST', 'PDT' ],
  //   timezone: 28800,
  //   daylight: 1 }

localtime(Number) -> Object

Binding for localtime(). Accepts a Number with the number of seconds since the Epoch (i.e. the result of time()), and returns a "broken-down" Object representation of the timestamp, according the the currently configured timezone (see tzset()).

time.localtime(Date.now()/1000);
  // { seconds: 38,
  //   minutes: 7,
  //   hours: 23,
  //   dayOfMonth: 10,
  //   month: 2,
  //   year: 111,
  //   dayOfWeek: 4,
  //   dayOfYear: 68,
  //   isDaylightSavings: false,
  //   gmtOffset: -28800,
  //   timezone: 'PST' }

currentTimezone -> String

The currentTimezone property always contains a String to the current timezone being used by node-time. This property is reset every time the tzset() function is called. Individual time.Date instances may have independent timezone settings than what this one is...