Date.prototype.toUTCString()
The toUTCString()
method converts a date to a string, interpreting it in the UTC time zone. toGMTString()
is an alias of this method.
Based on rfc7231 and modified according to ECMA-262 toUTCString, it can have negative values.
Syntax
toUTCString()
Return value
A string representing the given date using the UTC time zone.
Description
The value returned by toUTCString()
is a string in the form Www, dd Mmm yyyy hh:mm:ss GMT
, where:
Format String | Description |
---|---|
Www | Day of week, as three letters (e.g. Sun , Mon ) |
dd | Day of month, as two digits with leading zero if required |
Mmm | Month, as three letters (e.g. Jan , Feb ) |
yyyy | Year, as four or more digits with leading zeroes if required |
hh | Hour, as two digits with leading zero if required |
mm | Minute, as two digits with leading zero if required |
ss | Seconds, as two digits with leading zero if required |
Aliasing
JavaScript's Date
API was inspired by Java's java.util.Date
library (while the latter had become de facto legacy since Java 1.1 in 1997). In particular, the Java Date
class had a method called toGMTString
— which was poorly named, because the Greenwich Mean Time is not equivalent to the Coordinated Universal Time, while JavaScript dates always operate by UTC time. For web compatibility reasons, toGMTString
remains as an alias to toUTCString
, and they refer to the exact same function object. This means:
Date.prototype.toGMTString.name === "toUTCString";