Date Format for System Date

Hi Miriam,

While researching something for a colleague, I ran across your post. Here's the modified code that will allow you to display the date the way you want:

var currentTime = new Date();

var monthArray = new Array  ("January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December");

 var month = currentTime.getMonth();

 var theMonth = monthArray[month];

 var day = currentTime.getDate();

 var year = currentTime.getFullYear();

 var dateString= day + " " + theMonth + " " + year;

 var player = GetPlayer();
 player.SetVar("SystemDate",dateString);

In JavaScript, "Date" is an object with lots of information in it but sometimes, you need to give it a little bit more information to get the format you want.

var month = currentTime.getMonth() + 1 returns a number from 1 to 12. Months are actually captured as 0 through 11 in the date object which is why the code has "+ 1" at the end. To change this to the actual month name, you need to create an array of month names and then pick the one you want based on the value in your month variable. Keep in mind, arrays are numbered starting at zero, so you can actually drop the "+ 1" from the code. In your code above, replace "var month = currentTime.getMonth() + 1" with the following. 

var month = currentTime.getMonth();
var monthNames = ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"];
var currentMonth = monthNames[month];

var day = currentTime.getDate() returns the actual date but as a number. Similar to the month names, you will need to create an array of days formatted how you want them to be displayed. Because this is the actual date, it will not align to the formatted dates in your array since the array starts at 0 and the 1st day of the month is "1".  To create the alignment, you will need to subtract one from your day. In your code above replace "var day = currentTime.getDate()" with the following: 

var day = currentTime.getDate(); 
var formatDay = ["1st", "2nd", "3rd", "4th", "5th", "6th", "7th", "8th", "9th", "10th", "11th", "12th", "13th", "14th", "15th", "16th", "17th", "18th", "19th", "20th", "21st", "22nd", "23rd", "24th", "25th", "26th", "27th", "28th", "29th", "30th", "31st"];
var todaysDate = formatDay[day-1];

You do not need to change the year but you will need to update your date string. Replace "var dateString=month + "/" + day + "/" + year" with the following:

var dateString = todaysDate + " day of " + currentMonth + ", " + year;

This will return something like "22nd day of December, 2020".

Thank you thank you thank you Daniel!  That works perfectly now.  I'm so excited, thank you! 

Happy to help.

Miriam, for future reference, the line with "var dateString" could probably have its later order shifted; looks like it is in this line that the order of month / day / year is established.

If this script worked before, changing that line to:

var dateString=day + "/" + month + "/" + year

should also display it ordered as you want to see it.

So the nice thing is, sometimes code can be as comprehensible as that!

Hi, is there a way to format the date DDMMMYYY. So, today's date would be 04MAY2016? I used the script above and there is no zero before 4, so it comes out 4MAY2016. Thanks!

Hi Kristin!

This thread is a bit dated and I'm not sure that the users here are still subscribed to the thread. JavaScript is not something that is supported by Articulate and I'm sure not an expert at it. Hopefully someone in the community will be able to chime in and assist you here.

Hi, i would also like to know whether it's possible to make date format as DDMMYYYY, thank you.

Hi Jiayu,

This discussion is still quite a bit older and I haven't seen that many other similar ones. Where are you looking to change the date format? If you'd like to update this in your  Learning Management System (LMS) you may also want to reach out to your LMS admins to see if they can help! 

Ah, thanks Jiayu! I'll have to defer to the community to help with Javascript!