Date Helpers

Ensure any ISO date string includes the correct timezone offset — safely, without shifting time.

Date Helpers is a lightweight TypeScript utility that appends the proper timezone offset (IANA) to any ISO date string while preserving the original date/time.

✅ Features

• Preserves original date and time
• Appends the correct offset using IANA timezones (e.g., America/Sao_Paulo)
• Accepts partial inputs:
  • 2025-06-12
  • 2025-06-12T12:00
  • 2025-06-12T12:00:00
• Normalizes:
  • Missing seconds (12:00 → 12:00:00)
  • Milliseconds (keeps/normalizes 12:00:00.123)
• Validates inputs and avoids invalid cases like Z-03:00

📦 Installation

npm install date-helpers

Also works with yarn add or pnpm add.

🚀 Quick Start

import { appendOffset } from 'date-helpers';

// Adds offset and completes missing time
appendOffset('2025-06-12', 'America/Sao_Paulo');
// → '2025-06-12T00:00:00-03:00'

// Adds offset and seconds
appendOffset('2025-06-12T12:00', 'America/Manaus');
// → '2025-06-12T12:00:00-04:00'

// Keeps milliseconds; Z becomes +00:00
appendOffset('2025-06-12T12:00:00.123Z', 'America/Sao_Paulo');
// → '2025-06-12T12:00:00.123+00:00'

// Already has an offset: returned as-is
appendOffset('2025-06-12T12:00:00-03:00', 'America/Manaus');
// → '2025-06-12T12:00:00-03:00'

// Invalid input (mixing Z with offset) throws
appendOffset('2025-06-12T12:00Z-03:00', 'America/Sao_Paulo');
// → ❌ Error: Invalid date: cannot mix Z (UTC) with offset

🧰 Helpers

Beyond appendOffset, the lib exports helpers to extract/compose date and time parts:

import { getDate, getTime, joinDateAndTime } from 'date-helpers';

// Extracts the date part (YYYY-MM-DD)
getDate('2025-06-01T00:00:00-03:00');
// → '2025-06-01'

// Extracts the time part (HH:mm:ss)
getTime('2025-12-12T00:00:00-03:00');
// → '00:00:00'

// Merges date + time and appends offset based on timezone
joinDateAndTime('2025-06-01', '10:00:00', 'UTC');
// → '2025-06-01T10:00:00+00:00'

// Accepts timezone as a fixed offset
joinDateAndTime('2025-06-01', '10:00:00', '+02:00');
// → '2025-06-01T10:00:00+02:00'

// Keeps any offset already present on time
joinDateAndTime('2025-06-01', '10:00:00-03:00');
// → '2025-06-01T10:00:00-03:00'

📚 API

• appendOffset(input: string, timeZone: string): string

  • Appends the correct offset to the ISO input (date-only, datetime with/without seconds/milliseconds).
  • If the input already contains an offset, returns it unchanged.
  • If it ends with Z, converts to +00:00.

• getDate(date: string | Date, timeZone = 'UTC'): string

  • Returns only the date part YYYY-MM-DD.
  • For strings with a known offset, converts the instant to the calendar date in the given timeZone.
  • If the offset is -00:00 (unknown local offset), no timezone conversion is performed.

• getTime(time: string | Date, timeZone = 'UTC'): string

  • Returns only the time part HH:mm:ss.
  • For Date, respects UTC when provided; otherwise uses the object's local time.

• joinDateAndTime(date: string | Date, time: string | Date, timeZone = 'UTC'): string

  • Builds YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss[.SSS] and appends an offset.
  • timeZone can be IANA (America/Sao_Paulo) or a fixed offset (+02:00, -0300, -03).
  • If the time already has an offset (e.g., 10:00-03:00), it is preserved.

✅ Behavior

• Preserves the original date/time; only appends/normalizes the offset.
• Completes seconds when missing (12:00 → 12:00:00).
• Keeps milliseconds when present.
• Converts Z to +00:00.
• Common errors thrown:
  • Mixing Z with an offset (e.g., 2025-06-12T12:00Z-03:00).
  • Invalid formats (e.g., 2025/06/01, not-a-date).
  • Invalid month/day (e.g., month 13, day 32).

🔌 Compatibility

• Requires an environment with Intl.DateTimeFormat and IANA timezones (Node.js 16+ or modern browsers).
• Uses timeZoneName: 'shortOffset' to obtain offsets; modern environments return values like GMT-3, correctly parsed.

📦 Package

• npm name: date-helpers
• TypeScript types included (dist/index.d.ts).

📄 License

MIT