What do the getUTC* methods on the date object do?

Question

What does it mean when you get or create a date in UTC format in JavaScript?

Answer 1

getUTC is for converting times to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, the acronym is ordered differently than what it stands for) which is the standard time based on the time in Greenwich, London.

The universal time is calculated using a time offset (in minutes when in JavaScript.) This offset is based on the time zone configured on the client browser's operating system.

If you plan on storing dates for users in multiple time zones, this is what you should use.

Answer 2

A date represents a specific point in time. This point in time will be called differently in different places. As I write this, it's 00:27 on Tuesday in Germany, 23:27 on Monday in the UK and 18:27 on Monday in New York.

To take an example method: getDay returns the day of the week in the local timezone. Right now, for a user in Germany, it would return 2. For a user in the UK or US, it would return 1. In an hour's time, it will return 2 for the user in the UK (because it will then be 00:27 on Tuesday there).

The ..UTC.. methods deal with the representation of the time in UTC (also known as GMT). In winter, this is the same timezone as the UK, in summer it's an hour behind the time in the UK.

It's summer as I write this. getUTCDay will return 1 (Monday), getUTCHours will return 22, getUTCMinutes will return 27. So it's 22:27 on Monday in the UTC timezone. Whereas the plain get... functions will return different values depending on where the user is, the getUTC.. functions will return those same values no matter where the user is.

Answer 3

Further to Dan's remark about the acronym being different to what it stands for is a good reason: UTC Abbreviation on Wikipedia