JavaScript .setMonth()

The JavaScript date method .setMonth() changes the month according to the local time by modifying an instance of a Date object in place.

Syntax

date.setMonth(monthValue);
date.setMonth(monthValue, dateValue);

• monthValue: An integer from 0 to 11 which represents the month. For example, 0 is for January and 11 is for December.
• dateValue (optional): An integer from 1 to 31, which represents the day of the month.

If either monthValue or dateValue is outside the expected range, the other date information in the Date object is updated to account for the underflow or overflow. For example, when given 14 as the parameter for a monthValue, the year is incremented by 1, and the month is set to 2 (March).

If no value is provided for the dateValue parameter, the date value will not change unless there is an overflow. For example, calling .setMonth(1) to set the month to February on a Date object that was 1/31/2023 will result in overflow, and the date will be set to 3/3/2023. This is because February only has 28 days.

The return value of .setMonth() is the new timestamp given after changing the Date object in place. If a given parameter is NaN, undefined, or otherwise invalid, the date object will return NaN (if printed, it will display Invalid Date).

Example

This example shows multiple implementations of the .setMonth() function. First, the month alone is changed. Then, the month and date are changed. Last, the month and date are changed, but with an end of the month transition, leading to a date overflow.

const event = new Date('1/1/2023');

// Setting the month alone
event.setMonth(2);
console.log(event.getMonth());
console.log(event);

// Setting the month and date
event.setMonth(2, 31);
console.log(event);

// Be mindful when dealing with the last day of the month!
event.setMonth(3, 31);
console.log(event);

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The code above results in the following output:

2
2023-03-01T00:00:00.000Z
2023-03-31T00:00:00.000Z
2023-05-01T00:00:00.000Z

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Codebyte Example

This example is runnable and sets the event date to July:

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