Date.UTC()

The Date.UTC() method accepts parameters similar to the Date constructor, but treats them as UTC. It returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.

Syntax

Date.UTC(year)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex, day)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex, day, hour)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex, day, hour, minute)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex, day, hour, minute, second)
Date.UTC(year, monthIndex, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond)

• year

  • : Integer value representing the year.

    Values from 0 to 99 map to the years 1900 to 1999. All other values are the actual year. See the example.

• monthIndex optional

  • : An integer between 0 (January) and 11 (December) representing the month. Since ECMAScript 2017 it defaults to 0 if omitted. (Up until ECMAScript 2016, monthIndex was a required parameter. As of ES2017, it no longer is.)

• day optional

  • : An integer between 1 and 31 representing the day of the month. If omitted, defaults to 1.

• hour optional

  • : An integer between 0 and 23 representing the hours. If omitted, defaults to 0.

• minute optional

  • : An integer between 0 and 59 representing the minutes. If omitted, defaults to 0.

• second optional

  • : An integer between 0 and 59 representing the seconds. If omitted, defaults to 0.

• millisecond optional

  • : An integer between 0 and 999 representing the milliseconds. If omitted, defaults to 0.

Return value

A number representing the number of milliseconds for the given date since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00, UTC.

Description

UTC() takes comma-delimited date and time parameters and returns the number of milliseconds between January 1, 1970, 00:00:00, universal time and the specified date and time.

Years between 0 and 99 are converted to a year in the 20th century (1900 + year). For example, 95 is converted to the year 1995.

The UTC() method differs from the Date constructor in two ways:

1. Date.UTC() uses universal time instead of the local time.
2. Date.UTC() returns a time value as a number instead of creating a Date object.

If a parameter is outside of the expected range, the UTC() method updates the other parameters to accommodate the value. For example, if 15 is used for monthIndex, the year will be incremented by 1 (year + 1) and 3 will be used for the month.

UTC() is a static method of Date, so it's called as Date.UTC() rather than as a method of a Date instance.