Why isn't “2016-02-16” equal to “2016-02-16 00:00”?

Question

I\'m trying to pass both date strings to new Date(t).

I expect both strings represent the same time, after all, if I omit the time, shouldn\'t it be mid

Answer 1

returns 2016-02-16, midnight UTC, which is wrong, or at least not what I expected given what the other string parses as.

It adds the timezone offset to the 00:00

new Date("2016-02-16") outputs Tue Feb 16 2016 05:30:00 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)

My timezone being IST with an offset value (in minutes) +330, so it added 330 minutes to 00:00.

As per ecma-262, section 20.3.3.2 Date.parse ( string )

If ToString results in an abrupt completion the Completion Record is immediately returned. Otherwise, parse interprets the resulting String as a date and time; it returns a Number, the UTC time value corresponding to the date and time. The String may be interpreted as a local time, a UTC time, or a time in some other time zone, depending on the contents of the String.

When you explicitly set the time-units new Date("2016-02-16 00:00") it wll use set that as hours and minutes,

Otherwise as stated here in 20.3.1.16

If the time zone offset is absent, the date-time is interpreted as a local time.