Date Guesser

The default javascript Date.parse('Aug 9, 1995') is quite decent, but gives up too soon. The following are all invalid dates or parsed wrong:

new Date(Date.parse('19/8/1995'));
new Date(Date.parse('2th Sept 2010'));
new Date(Date.parse('Okt 2014')); // Gives Jan 01 2014

To parse a date is no easy feat, given timezones and different formatting styles. This script looks for patterns in a string to guess the date a little better with European formats.

Usage

You can install it with npm:

npm install date_guesser

var guess = require('date_guesser');
 
console.log(guess.parse("20-01-1998"))
//Tue Jan 20 1998 12:00:00 GMT+0100 (W. Europe Standard Time)
 
console.log(guess.parse("1 sept. 2004"))
//Wed Sep 01 2004 12:00:00 GMT+0200 (W. Europe Daylight Time)
 
console.log(guess.parse("June, 25th 2005"))
//Sat Jun 25 2005 12:00:00 GMT+0200 (W. Europe Daylight Time)
 
console.log(guess.parse("Aug. 2005"))
//Mon Aug 01 2005 12:00:00 GMT+0200 (W. Europe Daylight Time)