date.toTimeString

The toTimeString() method returns the time portion of a Date object in human readable form in American English.

Syntax

dateObj.toTimeString()

Return value

A string representing the time portion of the given date in human readable form in American English.

Description

Date instances refer to a specific point in time. Calling toString() will return the date formatted in a human readable form in American English. In SpiderMonkey, this consists of the date portion (day, month, and year) followed by the time portion (hours, minutes, seconds, and time zone). Sometimes it is desirable to obtain a string of the time portion; such a thing can be accomplished with the toTimeString() method.

The toTimeString() method is especially useful because compliant engines implementing ECMA-262 may differ in the string obtained from toString() for Date objects, as the format is implementation-dependent; simple string slicing approaches may not produce consistent results across multiple engines.

Examples

A basic usage of toTimeString()

var d = new Date(1993, 6, 28, 14, 39, 7);

console.log(d.toString());     // logs Wed Jul 28 1993 14:39:07 GMT-0600 (PDT)
console.log(d.toTimeString()); // logs 14:39:07 GMT-0600 (PDT)

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
ECMAScript 3rd Edition (ECMA-262)	Standard	Initial definition.
ECMAScript 5.1 (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Date.prototype.toTimeString' in that specification.	Standard
ECMAScript 2015 (6th Edition, ECMA-262) The definition of 'Date.prototype.toTimeString' in that specification.	Standard
ECMAScript 2017 Draft (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Date.prototype.toTimeString' in that specification.	Draft

Browser compatibility

See also

• Date.prototype.toLocaleTimeString()
• Date.prototype.toDateString()
• Date.prototype.toString()