CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.js
sanket143
sanket143

Reputation: 73

Is Date.now() okay to use, will it reach a number that JS can't handle?

Is there a possibility that Date.now() will start returning numbers in scientific notation?

It can possibly be a bug like Y2K. Is it safe to use it? Will it cross the biggest number possible in JavaScript?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1107

Answers (2)

Elias Soares
Elias Soares

Reputation: 10264

The biggest integer (Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER) JavaScript can handle is 2^53 - 1.

Converting that to years:

console.log(Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER / 1000 / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365)
// outputs 285616.41472415626

So the answer is YES, it's safe to use it.

Upvotes: 3

Poul Kruijt
Poul Kruijt

Reputation: 71961

That's not going to be a concern of yours:

Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER to Date:

Wed 12 Oct 287396

Relative: In 287.396‬ years

On the other hand

The actual range of times supported by ECMAScript Date objects is slightly smaller: exactly –100,000,000 days to 100,000,000 days measured relative to midnight at the beginning of 01 January, 1970 UTC.

However unrelated, there is the year 2038 problem which might set you off, but as mentioned is not related to JS

The Year 2038 problem (also called Y2038 or Y2k38 or Unix Y2K) relates to representing time in many digital systems as the number of seconds passed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 and storing it as a signed 32-bit integer. Such implementations cannot encode times after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038. Similar to the Y2K problem, the Year 2038 problem is caused by insufficient capacity used to represent time.

Date is funny :)

Upvotes: 2

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