How to get a date in a specified format in Google Sheets App script?

Question

I have a function to compare a date in a cell of a column to today's date and create a column for today if it is missing.

 function isColumn() { var today = Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), 'GMT+1', 'dd.MM.yyyy') ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet() s = ss.getSheetByName("Register") var dateCell = s.getRange(2,3,1,1) Logger.log(dateCell.setNumberFormat("dd.MM.yyyy").getValue()) Logger.log(today.valueOf()) if (dateCell.getValue().valueOf() === today.valueOf()) { Logger.log("Today's column exists") } else { Logger.log("Create today's column") } }

This is the log I always get

 4:43:23 PM Info Thu Nov 11 00:00:00 GMT+01:00 2021 4:43:23 PM Info 11.11.2021 4:43:23 PM Info Create today's column

The if condition can never evaluate as the date formats are wrong even though I used .setNumberFormat() method and the date displays in the correct format in the sheet.

How can I make the .getValue() method get the date in the correct format so I can evaluate the if condition?

Answer 1

Use getDisplayValue() instead.

getDisplayValue() Returns the displayed value of the top-left cell in the range. The value is a String. The displayed value takes into account date, time and currency formatting formatting, including formats applied automatically by the spreadsheet's locale setting. Empty cells return an empty string.

Example:

function isColumn() {
  var today = Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), 'GMT+1', 'dd.MM.yyyy')
 ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet()
  s = ss.getSheetByName("Register")
  var dateCell = s.getRange(2,3,1,1);
  dateCell.setNumberFormat("dd.MM.yyyy");
  Logger.log(dateCell.getDisplayValue());
  Logger.log(today.valueOf())
  if (dateCell.getValue().valueOf() === today.valueOf()) {
  Logger.log("Today's column exists")
  } else {
  Logger.log("Create today's column")
  }
}

Output:

Reference:

• getDisplayValue

Answer 2

I found out a solution too, meanwhile.

 function isColumn() { var today = (new Date()).toLocaleDateString('cs-CZ') ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet() s = ss.getSheetByName("Register") var dateCell = s.getRange(2,3,1,1).setNumberFormat("dd.mm.yyyy") if (dateCell.getValue() === "") { Logger.log("Create today's column") createColumn() }else{ Logger.log(dateCell.getValue().toLocaleDateString ('cs-CZ')) } Logger.log(today) if (dateCell.getValue().toLocaleDateString('cs-CZ') === today) { Logger.log("Today's column exists") } else { Logger.log("Create today's column") createColumn() } }

Converting the dates to locale date strings also worked for making it possible to evaluate the if condition.

Notice how I avoided Utilities all together to prevent date incompatibilities.