651

It amazes me that JavaScript's Date object does not implement an add function of any kind.

I simply want a function that can do this:

var now = Date.now();
var fourHoursLater = now.addHours(4);

function Date.prototype.addHours(h) {
  // How do I implement this?
}

I would simply like some pointers in a direction.

  • Do I need to do string parsing?

  • Can I use setTime?

  • How about milliseconds?

Like this:

new Date(milliseconds + 4*3600*1000 /* 4 hours in ms */)?

This seems really hackish though - and does it even work?

20 Answers 20

700

JavaScript itself has terrible Date/Time API's. Nonetheless, you can do this in pure JavaScript:

Date.prototype.addHours = function(h) {
  this.setTime(this.getTime() + (h*60*60*1000));
  return this;
}
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5 Comments

if per say you were adding an hour causing it to roll over to the next day, would this catch it and increment everything properly (day month year)?
@cdoern I think it would, since getTime() will return milliseconds and you just adding more milliseconds to that
Modifying the prototype is not recommended.
This also work when changing from summer time to vinter time and vice versa.
Best approach here. Converting to timestamp with milliseconds allow full control.
417
Date.prototype.addHours= function(h){
    this.setHours(this.getHours()+h);
    return this;
}

Test:

alert(new Date().addHours(4));

7 Comments

I don't think this works---test it on something with hour 23, for example? Jason Harwig's answer is what came to mind for me.
It's bad practise to add things to an object prototype in Javascript, and Domenic is correct, this doesn't work. Jason Harwig's solution below is better.
@Domenic This works fine with 23:00, tested inside the JavaScript console of Firefox 10, Chrome 21 and IE 8/9 Here the code I've used to test: var date = new Date(2012, 10, 22, 23, 0, 1); date.toString(); // Thu Nov 22 2012 23:00:01 GMT+0100 (CET) date.setHours(date.getHours() + 1); date.toString(); // Fri Nov 23 2012 00:00:01 GMT+0100 (CET) It also works fine with setMinutes()
Ran into issues with this solution - Incrementing by 1 failed for me at DST changeover point (move clock forward an hour).
Also got bitten by this -- I was looping through hours by using setHours(getHours-1): now, at first DST hour, this ends up being an infinite loop. So, check the result!
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345

The below code will add 4 hours to a date (example, today's date):

var today = new Date();
today.setHours(today.getHours() + 4);

It will not cause an error if you try to add 4 to 23 (see the documentation):

If a parameter you specify is outside of the expected range, setHours() attempts to update the date information in the Date object accordingly

3 Comments

This doesnt seem to work when the hours is a decimal (not an integer)
While using hour values >23 doesn't break this, it's nonetheless broken at daylight savings boundaries. Given it's broken, there's no reason to use it; prefer setTime or setUTCHour.
@gregmagdits it has been eight years but this is how to treat hours as decimal: d.setMilliseconds(d.getMilliseconds() + 0.5 * 60 * 60 * 1000); (0.5 is the fractional hour)
52

Get a date exactly two hours from now, in one line.

You need to pass milliseconds to new Date.

let expiryDate = new Date(new Date().setHours(new Date().getHours() + 2));

        or

let expiryDate2 = new Date(Date.now() + 2 * (60 * 60 * 1000) );

let nowDate = new Date();
let expiryDate = new Date(new Date().setHours(new Date().getHours() + 2));
let expiryDate2 = new Date(Date.now() + 2 * (60 * 60 * 1000) );

console.log('now', nowDate);
console.log('expiry', expiryDate);
console.log('expiry 2', expiryDate2);

Comments

45

It is probably better to make the addHours method immutable by returning a copy of the Date object rather than mutating its parameter.

Date.prototype.addHours= function(h){
    var copiedDate = new Date(this.getTime());
    copiedDate.setHours(copiedDate.getHours()+h);
    return copiedDate;
}

This way you can chain a bunch of method calls without worrying about state.

7 Comments

This function has same problems as stated out here stackoverflow.com/questions/1050720/… It's not really about whether it works on certain browsers, but other places that use Javascript see this as an issue. combing your solution with this one stackoverflow.com/a/1050782/295535 appears to be the best solution
You should consider changing the function name, as the word add* is commonly used to mutate the object itself.
@mr5 - not sure about that, add is used in the .NET framework DateTime class a lot, and has the same meaning as the + (plus) in Math.
currentDate.addHours(1) <- From my programming instinct, I'm expecting the currentDate value to change, but in your implementation, it would not. As to why I'm suggesting to rename or change its signature to something
@TahirHassan nothing to do with the technical details but on choosing the right word to use for function name. I still prefer the mutable version when the function is prefixed with add
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38

The version suggested by kennebec will fail when changing to or from DST, since it is the hour number that is set.

this.setUTCHours(this.getUTCHours()+h);

will add h hours to this independent of time system peculiarities.

Jason Harwig's method works as well.

6 Comments

I implemented a variation of this that includes minutes, I wonder WHY .setHours wouldn't work, as DST only affects the hour anyways...
@Eduardo06sp can you post the minute variation here?
@RajarshiGhoshal currentDate.setUTCHours(localToUTCHours + selectedOffsetHours, localToUTCMinutes + selectedOffsetMinutes) this worked for my implementation, where I display a list of time zones, and there is a <span> that shows the current time in the given time zone. Source code for more context because it's way too much to paste in here: github.com/Eduardo06sp/private-events/blob/main/app/javascript/…
Thank you so much. I did it like this - ``` item.createdAt.setUTCHours(item.createdAt.getUTCHours()+ 5 ); item.createdAt.setUTCMinutes(item.createdAt.getUTCMinutes()+ 30 ): ``` @Eduardo06sp
@RajarshiGhoshal is there a particular reason you hard-coded the hours 5 and minutes 30? That may work for anyone in your specific timezone, but not other people, since the offset would be different. I just wanted to give you that heads up! Good luck :}
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26

You can use the Moment.js library.

var moment = require('moment');
foo = new moment(something).add(10, 'm').toDate();

2 Comments

Moment.js is considered "dead" by now. It won't get updated except from potential security fixes. date-fns is the preferred library nowadays. It's smaller (Moment.js is a pretty large package), way faster + some of the functionality in Moment.js is now standard in the browser.
@Oyvind, can you please post this as a separate answer? I would gladly vote to promote it!
11

If you would like to do it in a more functional way (immutability) I would return a new date object instead of modifying the existing and I wouldn't alter the prototype but create a standalone function. Here is the example:

//JS
function addHoursToDate(date, hours) {
  return new Date(new Date(date).setHours(date.getHours() + hours));
}

//TS
function addHoursToDate(date: Date, hours: number): Date {
  return new Date(new Date(date).setHours(date.getHours() + hours));
}

let myDate = new Date();

console.log(myDate)
console.log(addHoursToDate(myDate,2))

1 Comment

Just a clarification: The new Date(date) is important because function setHours() would modify the original date object, thus having a side effect outside the scope of this function, which is against the principles of immutability.
9

I also think the original object should not be modified. So to save future manpower here's a combined solution based on Jason Harwig's and Tahir Hasan answers:

Date.prototype.addHours= function(h){
    var copiedDate = new Date();
    copiedDate.setTime(this.getTime() + (h*60*60*1000)); 
    return copiedDate;
}

1 Comment

Modifying the prototype is not recommended.
4

Check if it’s not already defined. Otherwise, define it in the Date prototype:

if (!Date.prototype.addHours) {
    Date.prototype.addHours = function(h) {
        this.setHours(this.getHours() + h);
        return this;
    };
}

Comments

4

This is an easy way to get an incremented or decremented data value.

const date = new Date()
const inc = 1000 * 60 * 60 // an hour
const dec = (1000 * 60 * 60) * -1 // an hour

const _date = new Date(date)
return new Date(_date.getTime() + inc)
return new Date(_date.getTime() + dec)

Comments

2

Another way to handle this is to convert the date to unixtime (epoch), then add the equivalent in (milli)seconds, then convert it back. This way you can handle day and month transitions, like adding 4 hours to 21, which should result in the next day, 01:00.

1 Comment

You're right - but you're also a couple of years late. Jason Harwig's answer showed this method 2 years before you; this answer adds nothing new.
2

You can add hours to a date object by adding that many milliseconds:

function addHours(date, hours) {
  return new Date(date.getTime() + hours * (60 * 60 * 1000));
}

The function provided above returns a new Date object (no mutation).

Comments

0

If you have date-fns package in your project you can use

const result = addHours(new Date(2014, 6, 10, 23, 0), 2) //=> Fri Jul 11 2014 01:00:00

Docs: https://date-fns.org/v4.1.0/docs/addHours

Comments

-1

For a simple add/subtract hour/minute function in JavaScript, try this:

function getTime (addHour, addMin){
    addHour = (addHour ? addHour : 0);
    addMin = (addMin ? addMin : 0);
    var time = new Date(new Date().getTime());
    var AM = true;
    var ndble = 0;
    var hours, newHour, overHour, newMin, overMin;

    // Change form 24 to 12 hour clock
    if(time.getHours() >= 13){
        hours = time.getHours() - 12;
        AM = (hours>=12 ? true : false);
    }else{
        hours = time.getHours();
        AM = (hours>=12 ? false : true);
    }

    // Get the current minutes
    var minutes = time.getMinutes();

    // Set minute
    if((minutes + addMin) >= 60 || (minutes + addMin) < 0){
        overMin = (minutes + addMin) % 60;
        overHour = Math.floor((minutes + addMin - Math.abs(overMin))/60);
        if(overMin < 0){
            overMin = overMin + 60;
            overHour = overHour-Math.floor(overMin/60);
        }
        newMin = String((overMin<10 ? '0' : '') + overMin);
        addHour = addHour + overHour;
    }else{
        newMin = minutes + addMin;
        newMin = String((newMin<10 ? '0' : '') + newMin);
    }
    // Set hour
    if((hours + addHour >= 13) || (hours + addHour <= 0)){
        overHour = (hours + addHour) % 12;
        ndble = Math.floor(Math.abs((hours + addHour)/12));
        if(overHour <= 0){
            newHour = overHour + 12;
            if(overHour == 0){
                ndble++;
            }
        }else{
            if(overHour == 0){
                newHour = 12;
                ndble++;
            }else{
                ndble++;
                newHour = overHour;
            }
        }
        newHour = (newHour<10 ? '0' : '') + String(newHour);
        AM = ((ndble + 1) % 2 === 0) ? AM : !AM;
    }else{
        AM = (hours + addHour == 12 ? !AM : AM);
        newHour = String((Number(hours) + addHour < 10 ? '0': '') + (hours + addHour));
    }
    var am = (AM) ? 'AM' : 'PM';
    return new Array(newHour, newMin, am);
};

This can be used without parameters to get the current time:

getTime();

Or with parameters to get the time with the added minutes/hours:

getTime(1, 30); // Adds 1.5 hours to current time
getTime(2);    // Adds 2 hours to current time
getTime(0, 120); // Same as above

Even negative time works:

getTime(-1, -30); // Subtracts 1.5 hours from current time

This function returns an array of:

array([Hour], [Minute], [Meridian])

1 Comment

What advantage does this 56-line monster of a function have over the two-line approach in the top-voted answer? -1 because there's huge extra complexity here for no benefit I can see.
-1

SPRBRN is correct. In order to account for the beginning/end of the month and year, you need to convert to Epoch and back.

Here's how you do that:

var milliseconds = 0;          //amount of time from current date/time
var sec = 0;                   //(+): future
var min = 0;                   //(-): past
var hours = 2;
var days = 0;

var startDate = new Date();     //start date in local time (we'll use current time as an example)

var time = startDate.getTime(); //convert to milliseconds since epoch

//add time difference
var newTime = time + milliseconds + (1000*sec) + (1000*60*min) + (1000*60*60*hrs) + (1000*60*60*24*days);

var newDate = new Date(newTime); //convert back to date; in this example: 2 hours from right now

Or do it in one line (where variable names are the same as above:

var newDate =
    new Date(startDate.getTime() + millisecond +
        1000 * (sec + 60 * (min + 60 * (hours + 24 * days))));

Comments

-1

I think this should do the trick

 var nextHour  = Date.now() + 1000 * 60 * 60;
 
 console.log(nextHour)

1 Comment

This makes nextHour a number value, not a Date value. Also, if you're going to use a snippet, use console.log to show the output.
-2

A little messy, but it works!

Given a date format like this: 2019-04-03T15:58

  //Get the start date.
  var start = $("#start_date").val();
  //Split the date and time.
  var startarray = start.split("T");
  var date = startarray[0];
  var time = startarray[1];

  //Split the hours and minutes.
  var timearray = time.split(":");

  var hour = timearray[0];
  var minute = timearray[1];
  //Add an hour to the hour.
  hour++;
  //$("#end_date").val = start;
  $("#end_date").val(""+date+"T"+hour+":"+minute+"");

Your output would be: 2019-04-03T16:58

Comments

-2

If you need it as a string, for example:

var defaultTime: new Date().getHours() + 1 + ":" + new Date().getMinutes();

Comments

-2

The easiest way to do it is:

const myDate = new Date();

myDate.setHours(myDate.getHours() + 2);

It will add 2 hours to the current time.

function addHoursToDate(myDate, hours) {
  myDate.setHours(myDate.getHours() + hours);
}

const myDate = new Date();
console.log("Current Date: ", myDate);

addHoursToDate(myDate, 2)
console.log("Updated Date: ", myDate);

Comments

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