JavaScript: Realms of the Unknown

There are many things we can do with JavaScript, which is an addition to the more commonly used hypertext markup language. JavaScript lets us manipulate variables, true/false values, and information unique to the user. One implementaion of this is to use JavaScript to put the current date and time on the user's computer:

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Here's the whole script.

RightNow=new Date();
var morev="AM"
var hour=RightNow.getHours()
if (hour>12)
var hour=RightNow.getHours()-12,
morev="PM"
var minute=RightNow.getMinutes()
if (minute<10)
var minute="0"+RightNow.getMinutes()
var second=RightNow.getSeconds()
if (second<10)
var second="0"+RightNow.getSeconds()
function initArray(){
this.length=12
this[0]="January"
this[1]="February"
this[3]="March"
this[4]="May"
this[5]="June"
this[6]="July"
this[7]="August"
this[8]="Sepetmber"
this[9]="October"
this[10]="November"
this[11]="December"
}
var mot=new initArray();
var month=mot[RightNow.getMonth()]
document.write("Today is "+month+" "+RightNow.getDate()+", 19"+RightNow.getYear()+".")
document.write(" You arrived at exactly "+hour+":"+minute+":"+second+" "+morev+".")

...And here's how you do it:

To script this into your page, you need to know how to tell the browser you're going to be coding something in javaScript. Like this:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javaScript">

One thing about javaScript is it's very picky. By that I mean case-sensitive. So, make sure you capitalize everything exactly the same as you see here, so you won't get error messages.
Next you have to tell it which variables you want to do what:

RightNow=new Date();
var morev="AM"

Those are two of them. RightNow is a variable that tells the computer to go get the current date and do stuff with it.
morev is a variable we'll use to discern between times before and after twelve noon--that is, AM and PM.

hour, minute, and second are variables which use RightNow to create their values.
var hour=RightNow.getHours()
if (hour>12)
var hour=RightNow.getHours()-12,
morev="PM"

This basically tells us whether we're in AM or PM time. JavaScript returns the time like you might find it on a twenty-four hour clock. The number basically tells you how many hours it has been since midnight. We change the variable to twelve-hour time, and change the variable morev to agree with the time of day.

The scripts for the minutes and seconds,
var minute=RightNow.getMinutes()
if (minute<10)
var minute="0"+RightNow.getMinutes()

var second=RightNow.getSeconds()
if (second<10)
var second="0"+RightNow.getSeconds()

simply add a "0" to the beginning of the number if it is less than ten. That's so you don't end up with a time like
10:3:2 AM
...since most people are used to
10:03:02 AM

The rest of the script tells the computer what month, in words, it is. It's a type of function called an array.

To get the whole thing on the screen so you can read it, you need
document.write("Today is "+month+" "+RightNow.getDate()+", 19"+RightNow.getYear()+".")
document.write(" You arrived at exactly "+hour+":"+minute+":"+second+" "+morev+".")

This script tells the document to write what we want it to. The text is in quotes and we use the + sign to add in the variables.

And that's that.

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