Detect timezone abbreviation using JavaScript

Question

I need a way to detect the timezone of a given date object. I do NOT want the offset, nor do I want the full timezone name. I need to get the timezone abbreviation. For example, GMT, UTC, PST, MST, CST, EST, etc...

Is this possible? The closest I've gotten is parsing the result of date.toString(), but even that won't give me an abbreviation. It gives me the timezone's long name.

Answer 1

[sorry for how I write English]

Hi, date object doesn't have a method for get the timezone abreviation, but it is implicit there at almost end of the toString return:

for example

var rightNow = new Date();
alert(rightNow);

the output will be something like "Wed Mar 30 2011 17:29:16 GMT-0300 (ART)" so, you can isolate what is between parentheses "ART" that is the timezone abreviation

var rightNow = new Date();
alert(String(String(rightNow).split("(")[1]).split(")")[0]);

the output will be "ART"

it's to late to answer, but I hope it'll be usefull for somebody

Answer 2

Try Google's Closure Class goog.i18n.DateTimeSymbols and their locale related classes.