Detecting an "invalid date" Date instance in JavaScript

Here's how I would do it:

if (Object.prototype.toString.call(d) === "[object Date]") {
  // it is a date
  if (isNaN(d)) { // d.getTime() or d.valueOf() will also work
    // date object is not valid
  } else {
    // date object is valid
  }
} else {
  // not a date object
}

Update [2018-05-31]: If you are not concerned with Date objects from other JS contexts (external windows, frames, or iframes), this simpler form may be preferred:

function isValidDate(d) {
  return d instanceof Date && !isNaN(d);
}

Update [2021-02-01]: Please note that there is a fundamental difference between "invalid dates" (2013-13-32) and "invalid date objects" (new Date('foo')). This answer does not deal with validating date input, only if a Date instance is valid.

Instead of using new Date() you should use:

var timestamp = Date.parse('foo');

if (isNaN(timestamp) == false) {
  var d = new Date(timestamp);
}

Date.parse() returns a timestamp, an integer representing the number of milliseconds since 01/Jan/1970. It will return NaN if it cannot parse the supplied date string.

You can check the validity of a Date object d via

d instanceof Date && isFinite(d)

To avoid cross-frame issues, one could replace the instanceof check with

Object.prototype.toString.call(d) === '[object Date]'

A call to getTime() as in Borgar's answer is unnecessary as isNaN() and isFinite() both implicitly convert to number.

My solution is for simply checking whether you get a valid date object:

Implementation

Date.prototype.isValid = function () {
    // An invalid date object returns NaN for getTime() and NaN is the only
    // object not strictly equal to itself.
    return this.getTime() === this.getTime();
};  

Usage

var d = new Date("lol");

console.log(d.isValid()); // false

d = new Date("2012/09/11");

console.log(d.isValid()); // true

shortest answer to check valid date

if(!isNaN(date.getTime()))

You can simply use moment.js

Here is an example:

var m = moment('2015-11-32', 'YYYY-MM-DD');
m.isValid(); // false

The validation section in the documentation is quite clear.

And also, the following parsing flags result in an invalid date:

overflow: An overflow of a date field, such as a 13th month, a 32nd day of the month (or a 29th of February on non-leap years), a 367th day of the year, etc. overflow contains the index of the invalid unit to match #invalidAt (see below); -1 means no overflow.

invalidMonth: An invalid month name, such as moment('Marbruary', 'MMMM');. Contains the invalid month string itself, or else null.

empty: An input string that contains nothing parsable, such as moment('this is nonsense');. Boolean.

Etc.

Source: http://momentjs.com/docs/

I have seen some answers that came real close to this little snippet.

JavaScript way:

function isValidDate(dateObject){ return new Date(dateObject).toString() !== 'Invalid Date'; } console.log(isValidDate('WTH')); // -> false console.log(isValidDate(new Date('WTH'))); // -> false console.log(isValidDate(new Date())); // -> true

ES2015 way:

const isValidDate = dateObject => new Date(dateObject) .toString() !== 'Invalid Date'; console.log(isValidDate('WTH')); // -> false console.log(isValidDate(new Date('WTH'))); // -> false console.log(isValidDate(new Date())); // -> true

Would like to mention that the jQuery UI DatePicker widget has a very good date validator utility method that checks for format and validity (e.g., no 01/33/2013 dates allowed).

Even if you don't want to use the datepicker widget on your page as a UI element, you can always add its .js library to your page and then call the validator method, passing the value you want to validate into it. To make life even easier, it takes a string as input, not a JavaScript Date object.

See: http://api.jqueryui.com/datepicker/

It's not listed as a method, but it is there-- as a utility function. Search the page for "parsedate" and you'll find:

$.datepicker.parseDate( format, value, settings ) - Extract a date from a string value with a specified format.

Example usage:

var stringval = '01/03/2012';
var testdate;

try {
  testdate = $.datepicker.parseDate('mm/dd/yy', stringval);
             // Notice 'yy' indicates a 4-digit year value
} catch (e)
{
 alert(stringval + ' is not valid.  Format must be MM/DD/YYYY ' +
       'and the date value must be valid for the calendar.';
}

(More info re specifying date formats is found at http://api.jqueryui.com/datepicker/#utility-parseDate)

In the above example, you wouldn't see the alert message since '01/03/2012' is a calendar-valid date in the specified format. However if you made 'stringval' equal to '13/04/2013', for example, you would get the alert message, since the value '13/04/2013' is not calendar-valid.

If a passed-in string value is successfully parsed, the value of 'testdate' would be a Javascript Date object representing the passed-in string value. If not, it'd be undefined.

// check whether date is valid
var t = new Date('2011-07-07T11:20:00.000+00:00x');
valid = !isNaN(t.valueOf());

I really liked Christoph's approach (but didn't have enough of a reputation to vote it up). For my use, I know I will always have a Date object so I just extended date with a valid() method.

Date.prototype.valid = function() {
  return isFinite(this);
}

Now I can just write this and it's much more descriptive than just checking isFinite in code...

d = new Date(userDate);
if (d.valid()) { /* do stuff */ }

I use the following code to validate values for year, month and date.

function createDate(year, month, _date) {
  var d = new Date(year, month, _date);
  if (d.getFullYear() != year 
    || d.getMonth() != month
    || d.getDate() != _date) {
    throw "invalid date";
  }
  return d;
}

For details, refer to Check date in javascript

After reading every answer so far, I am going to offer the most simple of answers.

Every solution here mentions calling date.getTime(). However, this is not needed, as the default conversion from Date to Number is to use the getTime() value. Yep, your type checking will complain. :) And the OP cleary knows they have a Date object, so no need to test for that either.

To test for an invalid date:

isNaN(date)

To test for a valid date:

!isNaN(date)

you can check the valid format of txDate.value with this scirpt. if it was in incorrect format the Date obejct not instanced and return null to dt .

 var dt = new Date(txtDate.value)
 if (isNaN(dt))

And as @MiF's suggested in short way

 if(isNaN(new Date(...)))

Too many complicated answers here already, but a simple line is sufficient (ES5):

Date.prototype.isValid = function (d) { return !isNaN(Date.parse(d)) } ;

or even in ES6 :

Date.prototype.isValid = d => !isNaN(Date.parse(d));

Why am I writing a 48th answer after so many have tried before me? Most of the answers are partly correct and will not work in every situation, while others are unnecessarily verbose and complex. Below is a very concise solution. This will checking if it is Date type and then check if a valid date object:

return x instanceof Date && !!x.getDate();

Now for parsing date Text: Most of the solutions use Date.parse(), or "new Date()" -- both of these will fail certain situations and can be dangerous. JavaScript parses a wide variety of formats and also is dependent on localization. For example, strings like "1" and "blah-123" will parse as a valid date.

Then there are posts that either use a ton of code, or a mile-long RegEx, or use third party frameworks.

This is dead simple method to validate a date string.

function isDate(txt) { var matches = txt.match(/^\d?\d\/(\d?\d)\/\d{4}$/); //Note: "Day" in the RegEx is parenthesized return !!matches && !!Date.parse(txt) && new Date(txt).getDate()==matches[1]; } TEST THE FUNCTION



Result:

The first line of isDate parses the input text with a simple RegEx to validate for date formats mm/dd/yyyy, or m/d/yyyy. For other formats, you will need to change the RegEx accordingly, e.g. for dd-mm-yyyy the RegEx becomes /^(\d?\d)-\d?\d-\d{4}$/

If parse fails, "matches" is null, otherwise it stores the day-of-month. The second lines does more tests to ensure it is valid date and eliminates cases like 9/31/2021 (which JavaScript permits). Finally note the double-whack (!!) converts "falsy" to a boolean false.

This just worked for me

new Date('foo') == 'Invalid Date'; //is true

However this didn't work

new Date('foo') === 'Invalid Date'; //is false

For Angular.js projects you can use:

angular.isDate(myDate);

I wrote the following solution based on Borgar's solution. Included in my library of auxiliary functions, now it looks like this:

Object.isDate = function(obj) {
/// <summary>
/// Determines if the passed object is an instance of Date.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="obj">The object to test.</param>

    return Object.prototype.toString.call(obj) === '[object Date]';
}

Object.isValidDate = function(obj) {
/// <summary>
/// Determines if the passed object is a Date object, containing an actual date.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="obj">The object to test.</param>

    return Object.isDate(obj) && !isNaN(obj.getTime());
}

I rarely recommend libraries when one can do without. But considering the plethora of answers so far it seems worth pointing out that the popular library "date-fns" has a function isValid. The following documentation is taken from their website:

isValid argument Before v2.0.0 v2.0.0 onward new Date() true true new Date('2016-01-01') true true new Date('') false false new Date(1488370835081) true true new Date(NaN) false false '2016-01-01' TypeError false '' TypeError false 1488370835081 TypeError true NaN TypeError false

None of these answers worked for me (tested in Safari 6.0) when trying to validate a date such as 2/31/2012, however, they work fine when trying any date greater than 31.

So I had to brute force a little. Assuming the date is in the format mm/dd/yyyy. I am using @broox answer:

Date.prototype.valid = function() {
    return isFinite(this);
}    

function validStringDate(value){
    var d = new Date(value);
    return d.valid() && value.split('/')[0] == (d.getMonth()+1);
}

validStringDate("2/29/2012"); // true (leap year)
validStringDate("2/29/2013"); // false
validStringDate("2/30/2012"); // false

Date.prototype.toISOString throws RangeError (at least in Chromium and Firefox) on invalid dates. You can use it as a means of validation and may not need isValidDate as such (EAFP). Otherwise it's:

function isValidDate(d)
{
  try
  {
    d.toISOString();
    return true;
  }
  catch(ex)
  {
    return false;    
  }    
}

IsValidDate: function(date) {
        var regex = /\d{1,2}\/\d{1,2}\/\d{4}/;
        if (!regex.test(date)) return false;
        var day = Number(date.split("/")[1]);
        date = new Date(date);
        if (date && date.getDate() != day) return false;
        return true;
}

I've written this function. Pass it a string parameter and it will determine whether it's a valid date or not based on this format "dd/MM/yyyy".

here is a test

input: "hahaha",output: false.

input: "29/2/2000",output: true.

input: "29/2/2001",output: false.

function isValidDate(str) {
    var parts = str.split('/');
    if (parts.length < 3)
        return false;
    else {
        var day = parseInt(parts[0]);
        var month = parseInt(parts[1]);
        var year = parseInt(parts[2]);
        if (isNaN(day) || isNaN(month) || isNaN(year)) {
            return false;
        }
        if (day < 1 || year < 1)
            return false;
        if(month>12||month<1)
            return false;
        if ((month == 1 || month == 3 || month == 5 || month == 7 || month == 8 || month == 10 || month == 12) && day > 31)
            return false;
        if ((month == 4 || month == 6 || month == 9 || month == 11 ) && day > 30)
            return false;
        if (month == 2) {
            if (((year % 4) == 0 && (year % 100) != 0) || ((year % 400) == 0 && (year % 100) == 0)) {
                if (day > 29)
                    return false;
            } else {
                if (day > 28)
                    return false;
            }      
        }
        return true;
    }
}

None of the above solutions worked for me what did work however is

function validDate (d) {
    var date = new Date(d);
    var day = "" + date.getDate();
    if ( day.length == 1 ) day = "0" + day;
    var month = "" + (date.getMonth() + 1);
    if ( month.length == 1 ) month = "0" + month;
    var year = "" + date.getFullYear();
    return (( month + "/" + day + "/" + year ) == d );
}

the code above will see when JS makes 02/31/2012 into 03/02/2012 that it's not valid

you can convert your date and time to milliseconds getTime()

this getTime() Method return Not a Number NaN when not valid

if(!isNaN(new Date("2012/25/255").getTime()))
  return 'valid date time';
  return 'Not a valid date time';

I combined the best performance results I found around that check if a given object:

is a Date instance (benchmark here)

has a valid date (benchmark here)

The result is the following:

function isValidDate(input) {
  if(!(input && input.getTimezoneOffset && input.setUTCFullYear))
    return false;

  var time = input.getTime();
  return time === time;
};

A ready function based on top rated answer:

  /**
   * Check if date exists and is valid.
   *
   * @param {String} dateString Date in YYYY-mm-dd format.
   */
  function isValidDate(dateString) {
  var isValid = false;
  var date;

  date =
    new Date(
      dateString);

  if (
    Object.prototype.toString.call(
      date) === "[object Date]") {

    if (isNaN(date.getTime())) {

      // Date is unreal.

    } else {
      // Date is real if month and day match each other in date and string (otherwise may be shifted):
      isValid =
        date.getUTCMonth() + 1 === dateString.split("-")[1] * 1 &&
        date.getUTCDate() === dateString.split("-")[2] * 1;
    }
  } else {
    // It's not a date.
  }

  return isValid;
}

No one has mentioned it yet, so Symbols would also be a way to go:

Symbol.for(new Date("Peter")) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date") // true

Symbol.for(new Date()) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date") // false

console.log('Symbol.for(new Date("Peter")) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date")', Symbol.for(new Date("Peter")) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date")) // true console.log('Symbol.for(new Date()) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date")', Symbol.for(new Date()) === Symbol.for("Invalid Date")) // false

Be aware of: https://caniuse.com/#search=Symbol

Inspired by Borgar's approach I made sure that the code not only validates the date, but actually makes sure the date is a real date, meaning that dates like 31/09/2011 and 29/02/2011 are not allowed.

function(dateStr) {
  s = dateStr.split('/');
  d = new Date(+s[2], s[1] - 1, +s[0]);
  if (Object.prototype.toString.call(d) === "[object Date]") {
    if (!isNaN(d.getTime()) && d.getDate() == s[0] &&
      d.getMonth() == (s[1] - 1)) {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return "Invalid date!";
}

Date object to string is more simple and reliable way to detect if both fields are valid date. e.g. If you enter this "-------" to the date input field. Some of the above answers won't work.

jQuery.validator.addMethod("greaterThan", 

    function(value, element, params) {
        var startDate = new Date($(params).val());
        var endDate = new Date(value);

        if(startDate.toString() === 'Invalid Date' || endDate.toString() === 'Invalid Date') {
            return false;
        } else {
            return endDate > startDate;
        }
    },'Must be greater than {0}.');