Convert text to date - quick tip

Tips
1

Bubble doesn’t have a native “convert to date” expression so when you’re using a ternary expression (i.e. format as text) and you want to input a default date, it’s not as easy as you might think.

e.g. If you want to create a new Thing with a default of today’s date (e.g. when no date is selected for your Thing) you can try the equivalent of:

DateSelector.value.is_empty ? CurrentDateTime : DateSelector.value

And it will complain that it’s expecting a date but you’ve given text.

Solution?

Toolkit to the rescue…

  1. Drop an “expression” element on your page
  2. Put the expression within new Date (‘’)

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  1. Use that Expression.value in your workflow instead of your input’s
  2. Bask in the feeling of you solving something using Javascript in your no-code app :flexed_biceps:

Hope it helps.

2

Nice tip
Do you know a workaround for server side expressions?

I want to maintain the “things” date if the user did not provide a new date, similar to “:defaulting to” for text values.

3

Another option is Better Date Parser which does same thing but introduces a plugin dependency (though supports any date format including plain text / in strings) Better Date Parser Plugin | Bubble

4

Thank you George, That worked, i had to format the date as ISO for it to work perfectly.

Another question concerning :defaulting to. I don’t know if it a bubble limitation or general something, but is there a way to implement :defaulting to on a list field? without setting a condition on the action. similar to how you’ll handle a text filed. (server side)

5

any method for backend workflows?

6

^ better date parser plug-in has a server action, or you can do a similar thing as text to JSON by calling your own backend workflow which returns the date