Tangent: Working with Dates

Bottom line: never trust a spreadsheet. You're going to hear me say that a lot in this production! Especially when it comes to dates.

Postgres is pretty good at dealing with dates... in fact it's amazingly powerful as well as correct:

<span class="hljs-keyword">select</span> now(); <span class="hljs-comment">-- what date and time is it where my server is located?</span>
<span class="hljs-keyword">select</span> now() <span class="hljs-operator">+</span> <span class="hljs-string">&#x27;1 day&#x27;</span> <span class="hljs-keyword">as</span> tomorrow; <span class="hljs-comment">-- adding an interval is extremely easy</span>
<span class="hljs-keyword">select</span> now() <span class="hljs-keyword">at</span> <span class="hljs-type">time</span> zone <span class="hljs-string">&#x27;America/New_York&#x27;</span>; <span class="hljs-comment">-- specifying a timezone</span>

If you're reading this in a browser, which I assume you are, open up the developer tools using CMD-shift-i (or Ctrl-shift-i on Windows) and open the console.

To see a typical date for JavaScript (and many other languages):

<span class="hljs-keyword">new</span> <span class="hljs-title class_">Date</span>() <span class="hljs-comment">//prints out a long-form date</span>

To see an ISO date, which most databases like, you can use:

<span class="hljs-keyword">new</span> <span class="hljs-title class_">Date</span>().<span class="hljs-title function_">toISOString</span>();

This is a format you should let your eyes get used to.