Issues when trying to format DATE from mongodb - node.js

Question

I am trying to format a date type property on a model before displaying it. This is the code that I am using:
// MODEL
var mongoose = require('mongoose'),
Schema = mongoose.Schema;
var ArticleSchema = new Schema({
title: String,
content: String,
author: { type: String, default: 'Vlad'},
postDate: { type: Date, default: Date.now }
});
ArticleSchema.methods.formatTitle = function() {
var link = this.title.replace(/\s/g, '-');
return '/article/' + link;
};
ArticleSchema.methods.snapshot = function() {
var snapshot = this.content.substring(0, 500);
return snapshot;
};
ArticleSchema.methods.dateString = function() {
var date = new Date(this.postDate);
return date.toDateString();
};
module.exports = mongoose.model('Article', ArticleSchema);
And on the client side I try to display the formatted date using:
{{ article.dateString }}
Still, whenever I load a view that contains this element, I get a 500 error:
Cannot call method 'toDateString' of undefined
EDIT1: I have no issue embedding {{ article.snapshot }} in my Views, but when it comes to the Date object, I get an error
EDIT2: When logging the dateString method using console.log(article.dateString()) I get the following:
Wed Sep 18 2013
EDIT3: This is when I get when using the code provided by dankohn. Is it just me, or is it simply running the method two times in a row?
this.postdate: Wed Sep 18 2013 23:27:02 GMT+0300 (EEST)
parsed: 1379536022000
date: Wed Sep 18 2013 23:27:02 GMT+0300 (EEST)
toString: Wed Sep 18 2013
Wed Sep 18 2013
this.postdate: undefined
parsed: NaN
date: Invalid Date
toString: Invalid Date

Answer 1

I've rewritten this to make perfectly clear where your date stuff is failing:
ArticleSchema.methods.dateString =
console.log('this.PostDate: ' + this.postDate)
var parsed = Date.parse(this.postDate)
console.log('parsed: ' + parsed)
var date = new Date(parsed);
console.log('date: ' + date)
var toString = date.toDateString();
comsole.log('toString: ' + toString)
return toString;
};
Separately, if this doesn't work for you, I recommend the library moment, which is much easier to work with than native Javascript dates.