How to convert a full date to a short date in javascript?

Here you go:

(new Date()).toLocaleDateString('en-US');

That's it !!

you can use it on any date object

let's say.. you have an object called "currentDate"

var currentDate = new Date(); //use your date here
currentDate.toLocaleDateString('en-US'); // "en-US" gives date in US Format - mm/dd/yy

(or)

If you want it in local format then

currentDate.toLocaleDateString(); // gives date in local Format

The getDay() method returns a number to indicate the day in week (0=Sun, 1=Mon, ... 6=Sat). Use getDate() to return a number for the day in month:

var day = convertedStartDate.getDate();

If you like, you can try to add a custom format function to the prototype of the Date object:

Date.prototype.formatMMDDYYYY = function(){
    return (this.getMonth() + 1) + 
    "/" +  this.getDate() +
    "/" +  this.getFullYear();
}

After doing this, you can call formatMMDDYYY() on any instance of the Date object. Of course, this is just a very specific example, and if you really need it, you can write a generic formatting function that would do this based on a formatting string, kinda like java's SimpleDateeFormat (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html)

(tangent: the Date object always confuses me... getYear() vs getFullYear(), getDate() vs getDay(), getDate() ranges from 1..31, but getMonth() from 0..11

It's a mess, and I always need to take a peek. http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_date.asp)