# \$1toDate
<a name="toDate"></a>

New from version 4.0

The `$toDate` aggregation operator in Amazon DocumentDB is used to convert a date or date and time string to a BSON Date type. This is the inverse operation of the `$dateToString` operator.

**Parameters**
+ `dateString`: A string representation of a date or date and time to be converted to a BSON Date type.
+ `format`: (optional) A string that specifies the format of the `dateString`. If not provided, the operator will attempt to parse the `dateString` in various standard date and time formats.
+ `timezone`: (optional) A string representing the time zone to use for the conversion. If not provided, the local time zone is used.

## Example (MongoDB Shell)
<a name="toDate-examples"></a>

The following example demonstrates how to use the `$toDate` operator to convert a date string to a BSON Date type.

**Create sample documents**

```
db.events.insertMany([
  { _id: 1, eventName: "Mission Start", eventTime: "2023-04-15T10:30:00Z" },
  { _id: 2, eventName: "Checkpoint Reached", eventTime: "2023-04-15T11:15:00Z" },
  { _id: 3, eventName: "Mission End", eventTime: "2023-04-15T12:00:00Z" }
]);
```

**Query example**

```
db.events.aggregate([
  {
    $project: {
      eventName: 1,
      eventTimeDate: { $toDate: "$eventTime" }
    }
  }
]);
```

**Output**

```
[
  {
    "_id": 1,
    "eventName": "Mission Start",
    "eventTimeDate": ISODate("2023-04-15T10:30:00Z")
  },
  {
    "_id": 2,
    "eventName": "Checkpoint Reached",
    "eventTimeDate": ISODate("2023-04-15T11:15:00Z")
  },
  {
    "_id": 3,
    "eventName": "Mission End",
    "eventTimeDate": ISODate("2023-04-15T12:00:00Z")
  }
]
```

## Code examples
<a name="toDate-code"></a>

To view a code example for using the `$toDate` command, choose the tab for the language that you want to use:

------
#### [ Node.js ]

```
const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');

async function example() {
  const client = await MongoClient.connect('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false');
  const db = client.db('test');
  const collection = db.collection('events');

  const result = await collection.aggregate([
    {
      $project: {
        eventName: 1,
        eventTimeDate: { $toDate: '$eventTime' }
      }
    }
  ]).toArray();

  console.log(result);
  client.close();
}

example();
```

------
#### [ Python ]

```
from pymongo import MongoClient

def example():
    client = MongoClient('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false')
    db = client['test']
    collection = db['events']

    result = list(collection.aggregate([
        {
            '$project': {
                'eventName': 1,
                'eventTimeDate': { '$toDate': '$eventTime' }
            }
        }
    ]))

    print(result)
    client.close()

example()
```

------