moment.js - UTC gives wrong date

Question

Why does moment.js UTC always show the wrong date. For example from chrome\'s developer console:

moment((\'07-18-2013\')).utc().format(\"YYYY-MM-DD\").toStri         


        

Answer 1

Both Date and moment will parse the input string in the local time zone of the browser by default. However Date is sometimes inconsistent with this regard. If the string is specifically YYYY-MM-DD, using hyphens, or if it is YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss, it will interpret it as local time. Unlike Date, moment will always be consistent about how it parses.

The correct way to parse an input moment as UTC in the format you provided would be like this:

moment.utc('07-18-2013', 'MM-DD-YYYY')

Refer to this documentation.

If you want to then format it differently for output, you would do this:

moment.utc('07-18-2013', 'MM-DD-YYYY').format('YYYY-MM-DD')

You do not need to call toString explicitly.

Note that it is very important to provide the input format. Without it, a date like 01-04-2013 might get processed as either Jan 4th or Apr 1st, depending on the culture settings of the browser.