compairing dates like 08/29/2007 to 08/30/2007

[selfAfflicted]

is there a way to compare dates/times using javascript that are already coded to output like this: 08/29/2007 08:30 to 08/30/2007 10:00

Var CurrentDateTime output: "MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM"

I am trying to find a way to calculate if the deadline for a project has passed, and have been stuck on the if statement, since you cant really compare variables that have slashes, spaces, and colons in them... or can you?

Any help would be appreciated.
thx

[Kropotkin]

Hello selfAfflicted

You probably want to convert the dates to epoch seconds.

Code: Select all

 
var projectDate = new Date() // set up the date here based on the strings you have (you need to look up the Date constructor)
projectDateSecs = projectDate.getTime()//secs since base time

You may need to do some string parsing to create the date object properly. The basic idea is to put the date into epoch seconds then you can do a numerical comparison

Hope that helps

Justin

[selfAfflicted]

Since I don't know how I would get "08/29/2007 9:30" into epoch seconds, I don't think I will be able to do this.

I have no control over the way the variable displays because its a built-in javascript function that I call on with a tag, kind of like cf does with some of its functions.

I guess my original question was if you could do math with a variable that output like this "08/29/2007 9:30" I am going to go back to that. Is there a way, if I have no control over how the variable is populated if I can edit its contents.

such as:
If I have a variable named currentDateTime and its output is "MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM" is there a way to separate out its values like this: "MM" = currentMonth "DD" = currentDay "YYYY" = currentYear "HH" = currentHour "MM" = currentMinute.

The reason I dont have control over the currentDateTime script is because its a built in function, that calls for the server time.

[c010depunkk]

http://www.comptechdoc.org/independe.../javadate.html

[selfAfflicted]

I'm talking about extracting MM DD YYYY HH MM from the current date time variable - cause thats the variable that gets the servers time.

[c010depunkk]

But if you convert both strings back to Date objects then you can easily compare them.

[Kropotkin]

Hi SelfAfflicted
*
[quote]

Since I don't know how I would get

[Kropotkin]

Since I don't know how I would get "08/29/2007 9:30" into epoch seconds, I don't think I will be able to do this.

[code]

var projectTime = "08/29/2007 9:30";
var dateArray = projectTime.split(" ");
//split on the space so dateArray[0] is the date part and
//dateArray[1] is the time part.
var dateArray2 = dateArray[0].split("/"); //split the date part into its parts

//feed Date year, month , day
//nb month starts Jan = 0 so you need to - 1
varProjectTimeObject = new Date(dateArray2[2] , (dateArray2[0]-1) , dateArray2[1])

varProjectTimeObjectEpoch = varProjectTimeObject.getTime();

//so varProjectTimeObjectEpoch now contains epoch seconds for this date.

//to get epoch secs for now is easier:

varNow = new Date();

varNow = varNow.getTime();

//now just compare varNow and varProjectTimeObjectEpoch

[code]

I think this is ok. Splitting on the space could be improved using a substring function perhaps.

It isn't a big deal. You just need to use string functions to get your date string into the format required to create a date object to represent it. Split() is very useful

Justin

[selfAfflicted]

thanks, we'll see how far I get with this in a while!