pg-date

Convert string representation of PostgreSQL timestamp without timezone output into a Date object.

Motivation

Some folks (including me) prefer storing all PostgreSQL date/time values as timestamp without timezone data type assuming timestamps are in UTC.

Some javascript libraries, e.g. pg-promise, when they see returning type of timestamp without timezone, do a simple new Date(val) which creates a Date object in the local time. This is not what expected.

Workaround:

1. Make your DB functions convert returned timestamp without timezone values to text. E.g. table.created_at::text AS created_at. String representation will be like 2016-08-26 04:32:04.273131.

2. Use pg-date helper to create a native javascript Date object in correct timezone. If the value that comes from database is null, the pg-date helper will also return null.

Example

const fromDbString = require('pg-date');

const dataSet = await queryDatabaseSomehow();

return dataSet.map(row => ({
  // ...
  createdAt = fromDbString(row['create_at']),
  // ...
}));