Problem with date formats in JavaScript with different browsers

Question

I am working with dates in an RSS feed, but am finding differing results when using the code below in IE, Chrome and Firefox:

new Date('2001-01-01T12:00:00Z')

Firefox is happy with that, but Chrome and IE return Invalid Date.

I thought I'd try replacing the T and Z as follows:

new Date('2001-01-01 12:00:00')

This time Chrome is happy with that, but Firefox and IE return Invalid Date.

Any ideas what I should do to get a date object in all browsers with this format?!

Many thanks, Tim

Answer 1

This works in all browsers on my box - try it in the console:

alert(new Date('2001/01/31 12:00:00'))

so

new Date('2001-01-01T12:00:00Z'.replace(/\-/g,'\/').replace(/[T|Z]/g,' '))

IE8, FF3.6, Safari4, Chrome

Answer 2

You could also try using Date.js - an open source javascript date manipulation library.

Answer 3

Can you try:

new Date(2001,0,1,12,0,0)

This means:

new Date(year,month,day,hour,minutes,seconds) 

Answer 4

This works on all of the major 5 browsers and causes all browsers to recognize the time as GMT/UTC rather than local time (the Z suffix means the time is UTC):

new Date('2001-01-01T12:00:00Z'.replace(/\-/g,'\/').replace(/T/,' ').replace(/Z/,' -0'))

I thank mplungjan for his answer.