Is there a simple way to make Sequelize return it's date/time fields in a particular format?

Question

Is there a simple way to make Sequelize return it's date/time fields in a particular format?

We need to have sequelize return dates in a particular format, not the default one. As far as I can tell, there is no way to set that up in options, or any other way. Short of manually updating the dates every time after they are retrieved, anyone been able to solve this easily? Or am I missing something?

node.js
sequelize.js

Answer 1

You can, use the Sequelize fn method. From the API Reference, the fn function will help create an object representing a SQL function in your query.

For example:

model.findAll({
  attributes: [
      'id',
      [sequelize.fn('date_format', sequelize.col('date_col'), '%Y-%m-%d'), 'date_col_formed']
  ]})
  .success(function(result) {
    console.log(result);
  });

Will return data values:

[
  {"id": 1, "date_col_formed": "2014-01-01"},
  {"id": 2, "date_col_formed": "2014-01-02"}
   // and so on...
]

Answer 2

you can define custom instance methods getDate/setDate which would translate date between sequelize internal representation and desired format like so http://sequelize.readthedocs.org/en/latest/docs/models-definition/index.html (see 'Expansion of models' section)