JavaScript function to add X months to a date

Question

I’m looking for the easiest, cleanest way to add X months to a JavaScript date.

I’d rather not handle the rolling over of the year or have to write my own function.

Is there something built in that can do this?

Answer 1

This function handles edge cases and is fast:

function addMonthsUTC (date, count) {
  if (date && count) {
    var m, d = (date = new Date(+date)).getUTCDate()

    date.setUTCMonth(date.getUTCMonth() + count, 1)
    m = date.getUTCMonth()
    date.setUTCDate(d)
    if (date.getUTCMonth() !== m) date.setUTCDate(0)
  }
  return date
}

test:

> d = new Date('2016-01-31T00:00:00Z');
Sat Jan 30 2016 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d = addMonthsUTC(d, 1);
Sun Feb 28 2016 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d = addMonthsUTC(d, 1);
Mon Mar 28 2016 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d.toISOString()
"2016-03-29T00:00:00.000Z"

Update for non-UTC dates: (by A.Hatchkins)

function addMonths (date, count) {
  if (date && count) {
    var m, d = (date = new Date(+date)).getDate()

    date.setMonth(date.getMonth() + count, 1)
    m = date.getMonth()
    date.setDate(d)
    if (date.getMonth() !== m) date.setDate(0)
  }
  return date
}

test:

> d = new Date(2016,0,31);
Sun Jan 31 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d = addMonths(d, 1);
Mon Feb 29 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d = addMonths(d, 1);
Tue Mar 29 2016 00:00:00 GMT-0600 (CST)
> d.toISOString()
"2016-03-29T06:00:00.000Z"

Answer 2

From the answers above, the only one that handles the edge cases (bmpasini's from datejs library) has an issue:

var date = new Date("03/31/2015");
var newDate = date.addMonths(1);
console.log(newDate);
// VM223:4 Thu Apr 30 2015 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (CEST)

ok, but:

newDate.toISOString()
//"2015-04-29T22:00:00.000Z"

worse :

var date = new Date("01/01/2015");
var newDate = date.addMonths(3);
console.log(newDate);
//VM208:4 Wed Apr 01 2015 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (CEST)
newDate.toISOString()
//"2015-03-31T22:00:00.000Z"

This is due to the time not being set, thus reverting to 00:00:00, which then can glitch to previous day due to timezone or time-saving changes or whatever...

Here's my proposed solution, which does not have that problem, and is also, I think, more elegant in that it does not rely on hard-coded values.

/**
* @param isoDate {string} in ISO 8601 format e.g. 2015-12-31
* @param numberMonths {number} e.g. 1, 2, 3...
* @returns {string} in ISO 8601 format e.g. 2015-12-31
*/
function addMonths (isoDate, numberMonths) {
    var dateObject = new Date(isoDate),
        day = dateObject.getDate(); // returns day of the month number

    // avoid date calculation errors
    dateObject.setHours(20);

    // add months and set date to last day of the correct month
    dateObject.setMonth(dateObject.getMonth() + numberMonths + 1, 0);

    // set day number to min of either the original one or last day of month
    dateObject.setDate(Math.min(day, dateObject.getDate()));

    return dateObject.toISOString().split('T')[0];
};

Unit tested successfully with:

function assertEqual(a,b) {
    return a === b;
}
console.log(
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 1), '2015-02-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 2), '2015-03-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 3), '2015-04-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 4), '2015-05-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-15', 1), '2015-02-15'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-31', 1), '2015-02-28'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2016-01-31', 1), '2016-02-29'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 11), '2015-12-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 12), '2016-01-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-01-01', 24), '2017-01-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-02-28', 12), '2016-02-28'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2015-03-01', 12), '2016-03-01'),
    assertEqual(addMonths('2016-02-29', 12), '2017-02-28')
);

Answer 3

Considering none of these answers will account for the current year when the month changes, you can find one I made below which should handle it:

The method:

Date.prototype.addMonths = function (m) {
    var d = new Date(this);
    var years = Math.floor(m / 12);
    var months = m - (years * 12);
    if (years) d.setFullYear(d.getFullYear() + years);
    if (months) d.setMonth(d.getMonth() + months);
    return d;
}

Usage:

return new Date().addMonths(2);

Answer 4

I'm using moment.js library for date-time manipulations. Sample code to add one month:

var startDate = new Date(...);
var endDateMoment = moment(startDate); // moment(...) can also be used to parse dates in string format
endDateMoment.add(1, 'months');

Answer 5

All these seem way too complicated and I guess it gets into a debate about what exactly adding "a month" means. Does it mean 30 days? Does it mean from the 1st to the 1st? From the last day to the last day?

If the latter, then adding a month to Feb 27th gets you to March 27th, but adding a month to Feb 28th gets you to March 31st (except in leap years, where it gets you to March 28th). Then subtracting a month from March 30th gets you... Feb 27th? Who knows...

For those looking for a simple solution, just add milliseconds and be done.

function getDatePlusDays(dt, days) {
  return new Date(dt.getTime() + (days * 86400000));
}

or

Date.prototype.addDays = function(days) {
  this = new Date(this.getTime() + (days * 86400000));
};