Check if two Dates are Equal in JavaScript

Check if two Dates are Equal in JavaScript #

To check if two dates are equal:

Use the getTime() method to get a timestamp of each date.
Check if the two timestamps are equal.
If they are, the dates are equal.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');
const date2 = new Date('2022-09-24');

// ✅ Check if two dates have same date AND time components
if (date1.getTime() === date2.getTime()) {
  console.log('✅ Dates have same date AND time components');
}

// ✅ Check if two dates have same date components
if (date1.toDateString() === date2.toDateString()) {
  console.log('✅ Dates have same date components');
}

The getTime() method returns the number of milliseconds elapsed between the 1st of January 1970 and the given date.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');

// 👇️ 1663977600000
console.log(date1.getTime());

If the output for both date objects is the same, then the two dates have the same year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds.

If you only need to check if two dates have the same year, month and day, you can use the toDateString() method.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');
const date2 = new Date('2022-09-24');

// ✅ Check if two dates have same date components
if (date1.toDateString() === date2.toDateString()) {
  console.log('✅ Dates have same date components');
}

The toDateString method returns a string representation of the date portion of the given Date object in a human-readable format.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');

// 👇️ "Sat Sep 24 2022"
console.log(date1.toDateString());

You could also use a more manual approach and use some of the built-in methods on the Date object.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');
const date2 = new Date('2022-09-24');

if (
  date1.getFullYear() === date2.getFullYear() &&
  date1.getMonth() === date2.getMonth() &&
  date1.getDate() === date2.getDate()
) {
  console.log('dates have same year, month and day');
}

This is a more explicit approach to achieve the same goal.

We used the following 3 date-related methods:

Date.getFullYear method - returns a four-digit number representing the year that corresponds to a date.
Date.getMonth - returns an integer between 0 (January) and 11 (December) and represents the month for a given date. Yes, unfortunately the getMonth method is off by 1.
Date.getDate - returns an integer between 1 and 31 representing the day of the month for a specific date.

You could use the same approach to compare the hours, minutes and seconds.

index.js

Copied!
const date1 = new Date('2022-09-24');
const date2 = new Date('2022-09-24');

if (
  date1.getFullYear() === date2.getFullYear() &&
  date1.getMonth() === date2.getMonth() &&
  date1.getDate() === date2.getDate() &&

  date1.getHours() === date2.getHours() &&
  date1.getMinutes() === date2.getMinutes() &&
  date1.getSeconds() === date1.getSeconds()
) {
  console.log('✅ dates have same date and time components');
}

We used the following 3 time-related methods:

Date.getHours - returns the hour for the specified date.
Date.getMinutes - returns the minutes for a date.
Date.getSeconds - returns the seconds of a specific date.

You can pick and choose which values you want to compare between the date objects.

When the logical AND (&&) operator is used, all of the conditions have to be met for the if block to run.

I wrote a book in which I share everything I know about how to become a better, more efficient programmer.

You can use the search field on my Home Page to filter through all of my articles.

Check if two Dates are Equal in JavaScript

Check if two Dates are Equal in JavaScript #

Borislav Hadzhiev