Date.toLocaleTimeString()

Returns the time portion of a Date object as a string, using locale conventions

The toLocaleTimeString() method returns a string with a language sensitive representation of the time portion of this date.

The new locales and optionsarguments let applications specify the language whose formatting conventions should be used and customise the behaviour of the function. In older implementations, which ignore the locales and options arguments, the locale used and the form of the string returned are entirely implementation dependent.

// Depending on timezone, your results will vary
var event = new Date('August 19, 1975 23:15:30 GMT+00:00');

console.log(event.toLocaleTimeString('en-US'));
// expected output: 1:15:30 AM

console.log(event.toLocaleTimeString('it-IT'));
// expected output: 01:15:30

console.log(event.toLocaleTimeString('ar-EG'));
// expected output: ١٢:١٥:٣٠ ص

Syntax

dateObj.toLocaleTimeString([locales[, options]])

Parameters

localesOptional. A string with a BCP 47 language tag, or an array of such strings. For the general form and interpretation of the locales argument, see the Intl page. The following Unicode extension keys are allowed:

nuNumbering system. Possible values include: "arab", "arabext", "bali", "beng", "deva", "fullwide", "gujr", "guru", "hanidec", "khmr", "knda", "laoo", "latn", "limb", "mlym", "mong", "mymr", "orya", "tamldec", "telu", "thai", "tibt".

caCalendar. Possible values include: "buddhist", "chinese", "coptic", "ethioaa", "ethiopic", "gregory", "hebrew", "indian", "islamic", "islamicc", "iso8601", "japanese", "persian", "roc".

hcHour cycle. Possible values include: "h11", "h12", "h23", "h24".

optionsOptional. An object with some or all of the following properties:

localeMatcherThe locale matching algorithm to use. Possible values are "lookup" and "best fit"; the default is "best fit". For information about this option, see the Intl page.

timeZoneThe time zone to use. The only value implementations must recognize is "UTC"; the default is the runtime's default time zone. Implementations may also recognize the time zone names of the IANA time zone database, such as "Asia/Shanghai", "Asia/Kolkata", "America/New_York".

hour12Whether to use 12-hour time (as opposed to 24-hour time). Possible values are true and false; the default is locale dependent. This option overrides the hclanguage tag and/or the hourCycle option in case both are present.

hourCycleThe hour cycle to use. Possible values are "h11", "h12", "h23", or "h24". This option overrides the hc language tag, if both are present, and the hour12 option takes precedence in case both options have been specified.

formatMatcherThe format matching algorithm to use. Possible values are "basic" and "best fit"; the default is "best fit". See the following paragraphs for information about the use of this property.

The following properties describe the date-time components to use in formatted output, and their desired representations. Implementations are required to support at least the following subsets:

  • weekday, year, month, day, hour, minute, second

  • weekday, year, month, day

  • year, month, day

  • year, month

  • month, day

  • hour, minute, second

  • hour, minute

Implementations may support other subsets, and requests will be negotiated against all available subset-representation combinations to find the best match. Two algorithms are available for this negotiation and selected by the formatMatcherproperty: A fully specified "basic" algorithm and an implementation-dependent "best fit" algorithm.

weekdayThe representation of the weekday. Possible values are "narrow", "short", "long".

eraThe representation of the era. Possible values are "narrow", "short", "long".

yearThe representation of the year. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit".

monthThe representation of the month. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit", "narrow", "short", "long".

dayThe representation of the day. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit".

hourThe representation of the hour. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit".

minuteThe representation of the minute. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit".

secondThe representation of the second. Possible values are "numeric", "2-digit".

timeZoneNameThe representation of the time zone name. Possible values are "short", "long".

The default value for each date-time component property is undefined, but if the weekday, year, month, day properties are all undefined, then year, month, and dayare assumed to be "numeric".

Return value

A string representing the time portion of the given Date instance according to language-specific conventions.

Examples

Using toLocaleTimeString()

In basic use without specifying a locale, a formatted string in the default locale and with default options is returned.

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 12, 3, 0, 0));

// toLocaleTimeString() without arguments depends on the implementation,
// the default locale, and the default time zone
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString());
// → "7:00:00 PM" if run in en-US locale with time zone America/Los_Angeles

Checking for support for locales and options arguments

The locales and options arguments are not supported in all browsers yet. To check whether an implementation supports them already, you can use the requirement that illegal language tags are rejected with a RangeError exception:

function toLocaleTimeStringSupportsLocales() {
  try {
    new Date().toLocaleTimeString('i');
  } catch (e) {
    return e​.name === 'RangeError';
  }
  return false;
}

Using locales

This example shows some of the variations in localized time formats. In order to get the format of the language used in the user interface of your application, make sure to specify that language (and possibly some fallback languages) using the locales argument:

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// formats below assume the local time zone of the locale;
// America/Los_Angeles for the US

// US English uses 12-hour time with AM/PM
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('en-US'));
// → "7:00:00 PM"

// British English uses 24-hour time without AM/PM
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('en-GB'));
// → "03:00:00"

// Korean uses 12-hour time with AM/PM
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('ko-KR'));
// → "오후 12:00:00"

// Arabic in most Arabic speaking countries uses real Arabic digits
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('ar-EG'));
// → "٧:٠٠:٠٠ م"

// when requesting a language that may not be supported, such as
// Balinese, include a fallback language, in this case Indonesian
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString(['ban', 'id']));
// → "11.00.00"

Using options

The results provided by toLocaleTimeString() can be customized using the optionsargument:

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// an application may want to use UTC and make that visible
var options = { timeZone: 'UTC', timeZoneName: 'short' };
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('en-US', options));
// → "3:00:00 AM GMT"

// sometimes even the US needs 24-hour time
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString('en-US', { hour12: false }));
// → "19:00:00"

Performance

When formatting large numbers of dates, it is better to create an Intl.DateTimeFormatobject and use the function provided by its format property.

References

Contributors to this page

Uros Durdevic

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