Date

Lets you work with dates and times.

Since Virtual Ticket, Job Manager, and Digital Storage Manager use separate date and time types, it is recommended that you use the XDate or XTime object instead of the Date object.

Core object

Created by

The Date constructor:

new Date() ;
new Date( milliseconds );
new Date( dateString );
new Date( yr_num, mo_num, day_num__
[, hr_num, min_num, sec_num, ms_num] );

Parameters

Parameter	Description
milliseconds	Integer value representing the number of milliseconds since 1 January 1970 00:00:00.
dateString	String value representing a date. The string should be in a format recognized by the Date.parse method.
yr_num, mo_num, day_num	Integer values representing part of a date. As an integer value, the month is represented by 0 to 11 with 0 = January and 11 = December.
hr_num, min_num,sec_num, ms_num	Integer values representing part of a date.

Description

If you supply no arguments, the constructor creates a Date object for today's date and time according to local time. If you supply some arguments but not others, the missing arguments are set to 0. If you supply any arguments, you must supply at least the year, month, and day. You can omit the hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds.
The date is measured in milliseconds since midnight 01 January, 1970 UTC. A day holds 86,400,000 milliseconds. The Date object range is -100,000,000 days to 100,000,000 days relative to 01 January, 1970 UTC.
The Date object provides uniform behavior across platforms.
The Date object supports a number of UTC (universal) methods, as well as local time methods. UTC, also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), refers to the time as set by the World Time Standard. The local time is the time known to the computer where MetaScript is executed.
For compatibility with millennium calculations (in other words, to take into account the year 2000), you should always specify the year in full; for example, use 1998, not 98. To assist you in specifying the complete year, MetaScript includes the methods getFullYear, setFullYear, getFullUTCYear, and setFullUTCYear.
The following example returns the time elapsed between timeA and timeB in milliseconds.

Property Summary

Property	Description
constructor	Specifies the function that creates an object's prototype.
prototype	Allows the addition of properties to a Date object.

Method Summary

Method	Description
Date.getDate	Returns the day of the month for the specified date according to local time.
Date.getDay	Returns the day of the week for the specified date according to local time.
Date.getFullYear	Returns the year of the specified date according to local time.
Date.getHours	Returns the hour in the specified date according to local time.
Date.getMilliseconds	Returns the number of milliseconds in the specified date according to local time.
Date.getMinutes	Returns the minutes in the specified date according to local time.
Date.getMonth	Returns the month in the specified date according to local time.
Date.getSeconds	Returns the seconds in the specified date according to local time.
Date.getTime	Returns the numeric value corresponding to the time for the specified date according to local time.
Date.getTimezoneOffset	Returns the time-zone offset in minutes for the current locale.
Date.getUTCDate	Returns the day (date) of the month in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCDay	Returns the day of the week in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCFullYear	Returns the year in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCHours	Returns the hours in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCMilliseconds	Returns the milliseconds in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCMinutes	Returns the minutes in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCMonth	Returns the month according in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getUTCSeconds	Returns the seconds in the specified date according to universal time.
Date.getYear	Returns the year in the specified date according to local time.
Date.parse	Returns the number of milliseconds in a date string since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00, local time.
Date.setDate	Sets the day of the month for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setFullYear	Sets the full year for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setHours	Sets the hours for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setMilliseconds	Sets the milliseconds for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setMinutes	Sets the minutes for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setMonth	Sets the month for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setSeconds	Sets the seconds for a specified date according to local time.
Date.setTime	Sets the value of a Date object according to local time.
Date.setUTCDate	Sets the day of the month for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCFullYear	Sets the full year for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCHours	Sets the hour for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCMilliseconds	Sets the milliseconds for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCMinutes	Sets the minutes for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCMonth	Sets the month for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setUTCSeconds	Sets the seconds for a specified date according to universal time.
Date.setYear	Sets the year for a specified date according to local time.
Date.toGMTString	Converts a date to a string, using the Internet GMT conventions.
Date.toLocaleString	Converts a date to a string, using the current locale's conventions.
Date.toSource	Returns an object literal representing the specified Date object; you can use this value to create a new object. Overrides the Object.toSource method.
Date.toString	Returns a string representing the specified Date object. Overrides the Object.toString method.
Date.toUTCString	Converts a date to a string, using the universal time convention.
Date.UTC	Returns the milliseconds in a Date object since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00, universal time.
Date.valueOf	Returns the primitive value of a Date object. Overrides the Object.valueOf method.

In addition, this object inherits the Object.watch and Object.unwatch methods from Object.

Examples

The following examples show several ways to assign dates: