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# Date.prototype.toUTCString()

The **`toUTCString()`** method converts a date to a string, interpreting it in the UTC time zone. `toGMTString()` is an alias of this method.

Based on [rfc7231](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-7.1.1.1) and modified according to [ECMA-262 toUTCString](https://tc39.es/ecma262/#sec-date.prototype.toutcstring), it can have negative values.

## Syntax

```js
toUTCString()
```

### Return value

A string representing the given date using the UTC time zone.

## Description

The value returned by `toUTCString()` is a string in the form `Www, dd Mmm yyyy hh:mm:ss GMT`, where:

| Format String | Description                                                  |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `Www`         | Day of week, as three letters (e.g. `Sun`, `Mon`)            |
| `dd`          | Day of month, as two digits with leading zero if required    |
| `Mmm`         | Month, as three letters (e.g. `Jan`, `Feb`)                  |
| `yyyy`        | Year, as four or more digits with leading zeroes if required |
| `hh`          | Hour, as two digits with leading zero if required            |
| `mm`          | Minute, as two digits with leading zero if required          |
| `ss`          | Seconds, as two digits with leading zero if required         |

### Aliasing

JavaScript's `Date` API was inspired by Java's `java.util.Date` library (while the latter had become de facto legacy since Java 1.1 in 1997). In particular, the Java `Date` class had a method called `toGMTString` — which was poorly named, because the [Greenwich Mean Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Mean_Time) is not equivalent to the [Coordinated Universal Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time), while JavaScript dates always operate by UTC time. For web compatibility reasons, `toGMTString` remains as an alias to `toUTCString`, and they refer to the exact same function object. This means:

```js
Date.prototype.toGMTString.name === "toUTCString";
```
