Locales

103 locales are available. Format dates in different languages and cultural conventions.

Setting Locale

Instance Locale

Set locale for a specific instance. Affects month names, day names, and ordinal formatting:

const date = daytime('2025-11-15T14:30:45Z')

// English (default)
date.locale('en').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Saturday, November 15th 2025"

// Indonesian
date.locale('id').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Sabtu, November 15th 2025"

// Japanese
date.locale('ja').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "土曜日, 11月 15th 2025"

Get Current Locale

const date = daytime('2025-11-15').locale('id')
const currentLocale = date.locale()
// "id"

Default Locale

Set default locale for all new instances. Existing instances are not affected:

// Set default locale
daytime.setDefaultLocale('id')

// Now all new instances use Indonesian
daytime('2025-11-15').format('dddd')
// "Sabtu"

// Get default locale
const defaultLocale = daytime.getDefaultLocale()
// "id"

Available Locales

Get list of all available locales:

const locales = daytime.getAvailableLocales()
console.log(locales.length)
// 103

console.log(locales)
// ["en", "id", "ja", "fr", "de", "es", ...]

Supported Locales

Daytime supports 103 locales including:

Major Languages

• English (en) - English
• Indonesian (id) - Bahasa Indonesia
• Japanese (ja) - 日本語
• French (fr) - Français
• German (de) - Deutsch
• Spanish (es) - Español
• Portuguese (pt) - Português
• Russian (ru) - Русский
• Chinese (zh) - 中文
• Korean (ko) - 한국어
• Italian (it) - Italiano
• Dutch (nl) - Nederlands
• Arabic (ar) - العربية
• Hindi (hi) - हिन्दी
• And 89 more…

Locale-Aware Formatting

Locales affect month and day names:

const date = daytime('2025-11-15T14:30:45Z')

// English
date.locale('en').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Saturday, November 15th 2025"

// Indonesian
date.locale('id').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Sabtu, November 15th 2025"

// Japanese
date.locale('ja').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "土曜日, 11月 15th 2025"

// French
date.locale('fr').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Samedi, Novembre 15th 2025"

// German
date.locale('de').format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
// "Samstag, November 15th 2025"

Format Tokens Affected by Locale

These format tokens are locale-aware:

• dddd - Full day name (Saturday, Sabtu, 土曜日)
• ddd - Short day name (Sat, Sab, 土)
• MMMM - Full month name (November, November, 11月)
• MMM - Short month name (Nov, Nov, 11月)

Other tokens remain the same across locales:

• YYYY, YY - Year
• MM, M - Month number
• DD, D, Do - Day
• HH, H, hh, h - Hour
• mm, m - Minute
• ss, s - Second

Examples

Multi-Language Date Display

function formatDateForLocale(date: Daytime, locale: string): string {
  return date.locale(locale).format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
}

const date = daytime('2025-11-15')
formatDateForLocale(date, 'en')
// "Saturday, November 15th 2025"

formatDateForLocale(date, 'id')
// "Sabtu, November 15th 2025"

formatDateForLocale(date, 'ja')
// "土曜日, 11月 15th 2025"

User Preference-Based Formatting

function getUserLocale(): string {
  // Get from user settings, browser, etc.
  return localStorage.getItem('locale') || 'en'
}

const date = daytime('2025-11-15')
const userLocale = getUserLocale()
console.log(date.locale(userLocale).format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY'))
// Output depends on userLocale setting

Application-Wide Locale

// Set default locale at app startup
daytime.setDefaultLocale('id')

// All instances now use Indonesian
daytime('2025-11-15').format('dddd')
// "Sabtu"

daytime('2025-11-16').format('dddd')
// "Minggu"

Locale Selection UI

const supportedLocales = [
  { code: 'en', name: 'English' },
  { code: 'id', name: 'Bahasa Indonesia' },
  { code: 'ja', name: '日本語' },
  { code: 'fr', name: 'Français' }
]

function formatWithSelectedLocale(date: Daytime, localeCode: string): string {
  return date.locale(localeCode).format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY')
}

const date = daytime('2025-11-15')
supportedLocales.forEach(locale => {
  console.log(`${locale.name}: ${formatWithSelectedLocale(date, locale.code)}`)
})
// English: Saturday, November 15th 2025
// Bahasa Indonesia: Sabtu, November 15th 2025
// 日本語: 土曜日, 11月 15th 2025
// Français: Samedi, Novembre 15th 2025

Locale Code Format

Locale codes follow the ISO 639-1 standard (2-letter language codes):

• en - English
• id - Indonesian
• ja - Japanese
• fr - French
• de - German
• etc.

Locale Persistence

Locale is preserved when chaining:

const date = daytime('2025-11-15')
  .locale('id')
  .add(1, 'day')
  .add(1, 'month')
  .format('dddd, MMMM')

// Still uses Indonesian locale
console.log(date)
// "Minggu, Desember"

Complete Locale List

To see all 103 available locales, call:

const allLocales = daytime.getAvailableLocales()
console.log(allLocales)
// Complete list of all supported locale codes