_system.date() as a date object?

Question

My system reports back _system.date() as mm/dd/yy which I
could easily parse but I understand that the system date format is
dependent on the user's OS, preference settings, language, mood ;-)
There’s got to be an easy way to get the system date as a
date object. I saw in an earlier post that OpenSpark has written a
bunch of cool calendar math routines but I need to start with
today’s date as a date object.

Answer 1

I use JavaScript syntax exclusively anymore, so I use the
JavaScript syntax Date object. It’s fairly robust and
x-platform. This is much like ensamblador’s use of the Flash
Date object. The Flash Date object and the JavaScript syntax Date
object are both implementations of ECMAScript 262, so it’s
one of those “six of one half dozen of the other”
situations. If you are scripting in Lingo then you would need to
create a Flash object and then instantiate a Date object in it. If
you’re scripting in JavaScript syntax then just use its
native Date object. When using the Date object you gotta remember
that the day of the week – dateObject.getDay() - and the
month - dateObject.getMonth() – are zero indexed... 0 =
Sunday, 0 = January etc. When I have to display day names or month
names I use arrays to store the names I want to display. Also,
hours are in 24 hour (military) time, so dateObject.getHours()
would return 16 at 4:27 pm. You can account for that by subtracting
12 from the returned Hours value if it is greater than 12.
function exitFrame(me)
var dObj = new Date();
var theHour = dObj.getHours();
var apendTime = " am";
var dayArray = new
Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday");
var dateArray = new
Array("January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","Octo ber","November","December");
var iText = member("infoText");
///// show the date textually
iText.text = dayArray[dObj.getDay()] + " " +
dateArray[dObj.getMonth()] + " " + dObj.getDate() + ", " +
dObj.getFullYear();
///// mm/dd/yyyy format
iText.text += "\n" + (dObj.getMonth() + 1) + "/" +
dObj.getDate() + "/" + dObj.getFullYear();
///// show the time like a digital clock
// 24 hour (military) time
iText.text += "\n" + theHour + dObj.getMinutes() + ":" +
dObj.getSeconds();
// civilian time
if (theHour > 12)
iText.text += "\n" + (theHour - 12);
apendTime = " pm";
} else {
iText.text += "\n" + theHour;
apendTime = " am";
// the minutes and seconds
iText.text += ":" + dObj.getMinutes() + ":" +
dObj.getSeconds() + apendTime;
_movie.go(_movie.frame);
}