Temporal.Instant.prototype.toString()

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

The toString() method of Temporal.Instant instances returns a string representing this instant in the RFC 9557 format using the specified time zone.

Syntax

js
toString()
toString(options)

Parameters

options Optional

An object containing some or all of the following properties (in the order they are retrieved and validated):

fractionalSecondDigits Optional

Either an integer from 0 to 9, or the string "auto". The default is "auto". If "auto", then trailing zeros are removed from the fractional seconds. Otherwise, the fractional part of the second component contains this many digits, padded with zeros or rounded as necessary.

roundingMode Optional

A string specifying how to round off fractional second digits beyond fractionalSecondDigits. See Intl.NumberFormat(). Defaults to "trunc".

smallestUnit Optional

A string specifying the smallest unit to include in the output. Possible values are "minute", "second", "millisecond", "microsecond", and "nanosecond", or their plural forms, which (except "minute") are equivalent to fractionalSecondDigits values of 0, 3, 6, 9, respectively. If specified, then fractionalSecondDigits is ignored.

timeZone Optional

Either a string or a Temporal.ZonedDateTime instance representing the time zone to use. If a Temporal.ZonedDateTime instance, its time zone is used. If a string, it can be a named time zone identifier, an offset time zone identifier, or a date-time string containing a time zone identifier or an offset (see time zones and offsets for more information). Defaults to "UTC".

Return value

A string in the RFC 9557 format representing this instant using the specified time zone. No annotations, such as time zone names, are included.

Exceptions

RangeError

Thrown if any of the options is invalid.

Examples

Using toString()

js
const instant = Temporal.Instant.fromEpochMilliseconds(1627814412345);
console.log(instant.toString()); // '2021-08-01T10:40:12.345Z'

// Stringification implicitly calls toString()
console.log(`${instant}`); // '2021-08-01T10:40:12.345Z'

Using options

js
const instant = Temporal.Instant.fromEpochMilliseconds(1627814412345);
console.log(instant.toString({ fractionalSecondDigits: 1 })); // '2021-08-01T10:40:12.3Z'
console.log(instant.toString({ smallestUnit: "minute" })); // '2021-08-01T10:40Z'
console.log(instant.toString({ timeZone: "America/New_York" })); // '2021-08-01T06:40:12.345-04:00'

// The time zone name automatically resolves to the correct offset
// based on the instant; for example, America/New_York is UTC-4 in summer,
// but UTC-5 in winter.
const instant2 = Temporal.Instant.fromEpochMilliseconds(1577836800000);
console.log(instant2.toString({ timeZone: "UTC" })); // '2029-12-31T23:00:00Z'
console.log(instant2.toString({ timeZone: "America/New_York" })); // '2019-12-31T19:00:00-05:00'

Specifications

Specification
Temporal proposal
# sec-temporal.instant.prototype.tostring

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobileserver
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
Deno
Node.js
toString
Experimental

Legend

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In development. Supported in a pre-release version.
In development. Supported in a pre-release version.
No support
No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.
See implementation notes.
User must explicitly enable this feature.

See also