Trying to format date, always getting invalid date

Question

The user selects a date from a jquery datepicker, it has following format:

DD.MM.YYYY

When the user submits the form, I want to transform the date input to UTC using moment. However whatever I do with the input, I get a Invalid Date error.

E.g. input is

30.03.2014

I try to format:

console.log(moment(input).format('MM/DD/YY')); <-- prints Invalid Date

I try to

console.log(moment(input).utc().toDate()); <-- prints invalid date

It seems that moment cannot parse the input, it can parse MM.DD.YY format, however the input must have DD.MM.YYYY format.

Any ideas whats wrong?

---

Using

moment(input, 'DD.MM.YYYY')

gives me:

{ from: '01.03.2014', to: '30.03.2014' }
{ from: Sat Mar 01 2014 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (CET),
  to: Tue Apr 01 2014 11:00:00 GMT+0200 (CEST) }

Solution

Consider using moment's hinting support:

moment(input, 'DD.MM.YYYY')

A Fiddle demonstrating the approach is available here:

http://jsfiddle.net/x4Xm3/

Moment will assume local time inputs, so if you are working outside of that timezone you may want to append the timezone to your input. See the docs at http://momentjs.com/docs - in particular parseZone() and "String + Format" sections.

In the case of server-side (node), you are probably getting odd results because of the server's timezone.