Safari Javascript bug

Question

Level 1

11 points

Safari Javascript bug

I have found that Safari cannot handle Javascript Date.parse() correctly which is a major problem for me. I am generating a GMT string in Perl, passing it to a cookie and then using Date.parse(gmtstring) to turn it into milliseconds so that I can do calculations. Every other browser returns the milliseconds correctly but Safari returns NaN. Does anybody have a workaround?

G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Feb 2, 2007 4:27 AM

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Answer 1

ra5ul

Level 3

500 points

Feb 2, 2007 12:17 PM in response to dobrojoe

it would help if you posted your code, specifically the format of $gmtstring.

you may have better luck searching bugzilla for a fix/workaround.

iBook g4 OS X.4.x

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Answer 2

dobrojoe Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 2, 2007 2:30 PM in response to ra5ul

The date format is

"Tue Feb 13 00:55:41 2007 GMT"

as generated by a Perl script using

my $expDate = gmtime(time()." GMT";

The code would be...

expdate="Tue Feb 13 00:55:41 2007 GMT";
exp3=Date.parse(expdate);
alert(exp3);

Every other browser returns a number like

1170455193910

Safari returns NaN

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Answer 3

ra5ul

Level 3

500 points

Feb 2, 2007 7:07 PM in response to dobrojoe

apparently safari won't parse that particular date format; i think the "GMT" needs to follow the time.

you'll have to use a different format, e.g.:
use POSIX; my $expDate = strftime "%a %b %e %Y %H:%M:%S GMT", gmtime;

or use javascript to reformat the string.

of course you could also request that safari support native gmtime() format. i think bug 3366 is the one you want.

iBook g4 OS X.4.x

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Answer 4

dobrojoe Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 3, 2007 2:28 AM in response to ra5ul

Look at this...

var now = new Date();
mydate=now.toGMTString(); (returns "Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:22:29 GMT")

d=Date.parse(mydate);
document.write(d);

(returns nothing in Safari and error console shows nothing)

So Safari can't even handle it's own format for GMTString

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Answer 5

ra5ul

Level 3

500 points

Feb 3, 2007 9:00 AM in response to dobrojoe

document.write(d) won't overwrite the page, but $mydate still gets parsed:
var now = new Date(); mydate=now.toGMTString(); d=Date.parse(mydate); alert(d);
works fine on my machine.

N.B. toGMTString() is deprecated. use toUTCString() instead.

iBook g4 OS X.4.x

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