Detect timezone abbreviation using JavaScript

Question

I need a way to detect the timezone of a given date object. I do NOT want the offset, nor do I want the full timezone name. I need to get the timezone abbreviation.

Answer 1

The Date object doesn't have a method for getting the timezone abbreviation, but it is implicit at the end of the result of toString. For example,

var rightNow = new Date();
alert(rightNow);

...will return something like Wed Mar 30 2011 17:29:16 GMT-0300 (ART). The timezone abbreviation can be isolated between parentheses:

var rightNow = new Date();
alert(String(String(rightNow).split("(")[1]).split(")")[0]);

The output will be the timezone abbreviation, like ART.