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parseDateTimeWithPattern

parseDateTimeWithPattern(value: string, pattern: string, locale?: string): string
import { parseDateTimeWithPattern } from "@northguild/gmt/plain/parse";

Parse a datetime string against a caller-supplied token pattern (e.g.

  • "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss", "dd-MMM-yyyy h:mm a") and return it as an ISO PlainDateTime string.
  • Decoding, not display. This is for consuming a known, fixed producer format — a CSV column, a legacy API field, a partially-typed form value — not for generating locale-correct output. For display, use formatDateTime/formatDateToParts, which order fields per locale instead of hard-coding a field order (see roadmap Decision 1 — a token formatter, the inverse of this function, is deliberately out of scope for GMT).
  • Accepts the full combined date + time token set (unlike parseDateWithPattern/parseTimeWithPattern, which each reject the other’s tokens). ### Token table | Token | Field | Width | Range | Notes | |—|—|—|—|—| | yyyy | year | 4 digits | 0000–9999 | | | yy | year | 2 digits | 00–99 | Pivot: 00–68 → 2000–2068, 69–99 → 1969–1999 (fixed rule) | | MM | month | 2 digits | 01–12 | | | M | month | 1-2 digits | 1–12 | | | MMMM | month name (long) | locale | — | getLocaleMonthNames(locale, "long") | | MMM | month name (short) | locale | — | getLocaleMonthNames(locale, "short") | | dd | day | 2 digits | 01–31 | | | d | day | 1-2 digits | 1–31 | | | HH | hour (24h) | 2 digits | 00–23 | | | H | hour (24h) | 1-2 digits | 0–23 | | | hh | hour (12h) | 2 digits | 01–12 | needs a to resolve to 24h — see below | | h | hour (12h) | 1-2 digits | 1–12 | same | | mm | minute | 2 digits | 00–59 | | | m | minute | 1-2 digits | 0–59 | | | ss | second | 2 digits | 00–59 | | | s | second | 1-2 digits | 0–59 | | | SSS | millisecond | 3 digits | 000–999 | | | EEEE | weekday name (long) | locale | — | consumed, NOT cross-validated against the date (see below) | | EEE | weekday name (short) | locale | — | same | | a | meridiem | locale | — | getLocaleMeridiems(locale)[AM-label, PM-label] | | GGGG | era name (long) | locale | — | BCE label ⇒ final year = 1 − parsed year | | GG | era name (short) | locale | — | same resolution |
  • Text in 'single quotes' is a literal; a doubled '' inside a quoted segment is a literal '. Any other character (/ - , space :, literal digits, etc.) outside a quote/letter-run is automatically a literal — no explicit quoting required.
  • MMMM/MMM/EEEE/EEE/a/GGGG/GG are locale-aware. If locale is omitted and the pattern uses any of them, GMT defaults to "en-US" rather than returning "" for every caller who didn’t have another locale in mind.
  • EEEE/EEE are matched against the locale’s weekday names but the result is not cross-checked against the constructed date — e.g. "Monday, 2024-03-15 14:00" parses successfully against "EEEE, yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm" even though 2024-03-15 is actually a Friday. This is a deliberate scope limit (no second weekday-index-to-ISO-dayOfWeek mapping layer).
  • h/hh resolve to 24-hour using a matched a token: if the label is the PM label and hour !== 12, add 12; if the AM label and hour === 12, set hour to 0. With no a token in the pattern at all, the pattern is still valid but the hour stays ambiguous — GMT resolves it as if AM had matched (12 → 0, otherwise unchanged).
  • Adjacent variable-width numeric tokens with no literal separator (e.g. "Mdyyyy") are inherently ambiguous: each becomes a greedy \d{1,2}/etc. in sequence, so the split between fields depends on regex backtracking, not on any documented rule. Prefer zero-padded tokens (MM, dd) or an explicit separator for reliable parsing.
  • A shape-valid match does not by itself prove a real date/time: extracted fields are always handed to Temporal.PlainDateTime.from(fields, { overflow: "reject" }) — the regex only proves the shape, Temporal proves the value is real.
  • Fields absent from pattern default the way Temporal.PlainDateTime.from defaults an omitted field (time fields default to 0; year/month/day are still required for a valid result).
Parameter Type Description
value string The string to decode (e.g. “03/15/2024 14:30:00”)
pattern string The token pattern describing value’s shape (e.g. “MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss”)
locale string Optional BCP 47 locale for name-based tokens (default “en-US”)

ISO PlainDateTime string, or “” on no match, malformed pattern, or invalid input

parseDateTimeWithPattern("03/15/2024 14:30:00", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss") // "2024-03-15T14:30:00"
parseDateTimeWithPattern("15-Mar-2024 02:30 PM", "dd-MMM-yyyy hh:mm a") // "2024-03-15T14:30:00"
parseDateTimeWithPattern("02/31/2024 14:30:00", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss") // "" (shape-valid, not a real date)
parseDateTimeWithPattern("not a date", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss") // ""

plain/parse/parseDateTimeWithPattern.ts