Table of Contents
About
The HTTP
Date request
and response header
contains the date and time at which the message
originated1.
Characteristics
See Forbidden request header , HTTP request headers HTTP response headers ,
| Header type | Request header, Response header |
|---|---|
| Forbidden request header | Yes |
Syntax
Date: <day-name>, <day> <month> <year> <hour>:<minute>:<second> GMT
Directives
| Directive | Example |
|---|---|
<day-name> | One of Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun (case-sensitive) |
<day> | 2 digit day number, e.g., “04” or “23” |
<month> | One of Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec (case sensitive) |
<year> | 4 digit year number, e.g., “1990” or “2016” |
<hour> | 2 digit hour number, e.g., “09” or “23” |
<minute> | 2 digit minute number, e.g. “04” or “59” |
<second> | 2 digit second number, e.g., “04” or “59” |
| GMT | Greenwich Mean Time. HTTP dates are always expressed in GMT, never in local time |
Examples
Response with a Date header
The following HTTP message is a successful 200 status
, with a Date header showing the time the message originated. Other headers are omitted for brevity:
HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: text/html
Date: Sun, 11 May 2025 06:42:00 GMT
<html lang="en-GB"...
Attempting to set the field value in JavaScript
The Date header is a Forbidden request header
, so this code cannot set the message Date field:
fetch("https://httpbin.org/get", {
headers: {
Date: new Date().toUTCString(),
},
});
Anki
Links
References
MDN. “Date header”. Available at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Date . (Accessed: ). ↩︎