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javascriptdate-parsingdatetime-parsingecmascript-temporal

Is there one function I can call to parse any string into the appropriate JS Temporal type?

I've got a list of ISO 8601-compatible strings, some of which are dates (like '2022-12-25'), some are date-time values (like '2022-12-25T12:00'), and some have time zone info (like '2022-12-25T12:00-08:00[America/Los_Angeles]'.

Using the new Temporal API that's coming to JavaScript, is there one function I can call to parse all these strings into their corresponding Temporal types like Temporal.PlainDate, Temporal.PlainDateTime, Temporal.ZonedDateTime, etc.?

Solution

  • No, there is not a universal parse-into-any-Temporal-type function that's built into the language.

    This is because the same string can be used to parse many different Temporal types. To parse a string into a Temporal type, you must know ahead of time what type you want.

    For example, 2020-04-25[u-ca=hebrew] can be successfully parsed by Temporal.PlainDate.from, Temporal.PlainMonthDay.from, Temporal.PlainYearMonth.from, or even Temporal.PlainDateTime.from. This ambiguity requires choosing a Temporal type before parsing.