Fix - Date.getDay() returns wrong day in JavaScript

Fix - Date.getDay() returns wrong day in JavaScript #

Use the getDate() method, instead of getDay(), to get the correct value for the day of the month, e.g. date.getDate(). The getDate method returns a number between 1 and 31 that represents the day of the month for the given date.

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const date = new Date('2022-04-24');

console.log(date); // 👉️ Sun Apr 24 2022

const dayOfMonth = date.getDate();
console.log(dayOfMonth); // 👉️ 24

We used the Date() constructor to create a date that stores the value of 24th of April, 2022.

The getDate() method returns the day of the month stored in the specific Date object.

The method is often confused with getDay().

The getDay method returns a number between 0 and 6 that corresponds to the day of the week for the given date.

For example, 0 is Sunday, 1 is Monday, 2 is Tuesday, etc.

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const date = new Date('2022-04-24');

console.log(date); // 👉️ Sun Apr 24 2022

// ❌ getDay = zero-based  day of week
const dayOfWeek = date.getDay();
console.log(dayOfWeek); // 👉️ 0

Another confusing date-related method is getMonth(), which returns a zero-based number for the month of a given day, where 0 is January, 1 is February, 2 is March, etc.

Here is an example that formats a Date as YYYY-MM-DD.

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function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

function formatDate(date) {
  return [
    date.getFullYear(),
    padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
    padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
  ].join('-');
}

const date = new Date('2022-04-24');

// 👇️ 2022-04-24 (yyyy-mm-dd)
console.log(formatDate(date));

//  👇️️ 2025-05-09 (yyyy-mm-dd)
console.log(formatDate(new Date(2025, 4, 9)));

The first thing we did is create a padTo2Digits function, which will take care of adding a leading zero if the month or day only contain a single digit (are less than 10).

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function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

console.log(padTo2Digits(3)); // 👉️ '03'
console.log(padTo2Digits(6)); // 👉️ '06'
console.log(padTo2Digits(10)); // 👉️ '10'

We want to make sure that the result is always consistent and has 2 digits for the months and days, so we used the padStart method.

Next, we created a function that takes a date and formats it to yyyy-mm-dd.

The function makes use of 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.

Because the getMonth method is zero-based we added 1 to its return value.

The last step is to place the calls to the methods in an array, so we can join them by a hyphen separator. Here are some examples.

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console.log(['2022', '04', '24'].join('-')); // 👉️ '2022-04-24'
console.log(['2024', '09', '15'].join('-')); // 👉️ '2024-09-15'

We used a hyphen separator in the example, however you could use a forward slash /, reorder the values, or make any other changes.