How to use UTC Methods In Javascript

Using setHours Methods

Use the Date.UTC method to create a Date object set to a specific date at midnight in UTC. Retrieve the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond to ensure the time has been set correctly.

Example: To demonstrate initialization a JavaScript Date to midnight using UTC Methods

JavaScript

// Create a Date object for May 
// 24, 2024, at midnight UTC
const date = new Date(Date.UTC(2024, 4, 24));

// Access the various components of the date 
// to verify the time is set to midnight UTC
const yearUTC = date
    .getUTCFullYear();
const monthUTC = date
    .getUTCMonth() + 1; // Months are zero-indexed
const dayUTC = date
    .getUTCDate();
const hourUTC = date
    .getUTCHours();
const minuteUTC = date
    .getUTCMinutes();
const secondUTC = date
    .getUTCSeconds();
const millisecondUTC = date
    .getUTCMilliseconds();

// Log the components to verify the time is set to midnight UTC
console.log(`UTC Date: ${yearUTC}-${monthUTC}-${dayUTC}`);
console.log(`UTC Time: ${hourUTC}:${minuteUTC}:${secondUTC}.${millisecondUTC}`);

Output

UTC Date: 2024-5-24
UTC Time: 0:0:0.0

Time Complexity: O(1)

Space Complexity: O(1)

How to Initialize a JavaScript Date to Midnight?

JavaScript can be used to initialize a JavaScript Date to midnight i.e. set hours like (0,0,0,0). In many applications, there is a need to work with dates set to midnight, meaning the start of the day at 00:00:00.000 hours such as When performing date calculations, we often need to start from the beginning of the day.

Below are the approaches to initialize a JavaScript date to midnight:

Table of Content