The Date module of the DataType Utility allows you to take a String or a Number (in milliseconds) value and convert it to Date. The parse() method will accept any String or Number value supported by JavaScript's Date() constructor.
To convert a data value to a date, simply call the parse() function of the Y.Date class:
YUI().use("datatype-date", function(Y) {
var date = Y.Date.parse("Jan 7, 2003");
// date is a JavaScript Date object
});
Under the hood, the data value is converted to a date via the Date() constructor:
YUI().use("datatype-date", function(Y) {
// These all return dates
var date = Y.Date.parse("December 17, 1995 03:24:00");
date = Y.Date.parse(948548583);
});