Compare two time (hh:mm:ss) strings

Question

I have two time strings in hh:mm:ss format. (eg: 12:40:13 and 20:01:01.) How can I compare these in JavaScript?

Answer 1

If "compare" means "see if they are equal", and the two have the same format, why not simply:

var time1 = "12:40:13";
var time2 = "20:01:01";

if (time1 == time2) {
    // do stuff
}

If you need to get the difference in time, the conversion to a date object is one way (see mplungjan's answer) or you can convert them to a common unit (say seconds) and subtract:

function toSeconds(t) {
    var bits = t.split(':');
    return bits[0]*3600 + bits[1]*60 + bits[2]*1;
}

var secs1 = toSeconds(time1);
var secs2 = toSeconds(time2);

// do stuff  - compare, subtract, less than, greater than, whatever