HTML5 Input Type Date — Default Value to Today?

Question

The new HTML5 input types are great. Opera's new built-in date picker is a breeze, and Chrome has at least supported the new input type with a spin-wheel implementation.

But is there any way to set the default value of the date field to today's date? With Opera, I can choose 'Today' from the date picker, and as soon as I click on either of the step buttons in Chrome, it increments/decrements from today's date.

I'm not shy to code a solution to this minor problem, but it seems silly to me that both of the browsers are fully aware of the current date but won't automatically just pop it in (at least as a placeholder).

Answer 1

this works for me:

document.getElementById('datePicker').valueAsDate = new Date();

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputElement

Answer 2

And for those using ASP VBScript

<%
'Generates date in yyyy-mm-dd format
Function GetFormattedDate(setDate)
strDate = CDate(setDate)
strDay = DatePart("d", strDate)
strMonth = DatePart("m", strDate)
strYear = DatePart("yyyy", strDate)
If strDay < 10 Then
  strDay = "0" & strDay
End If
If strMonth < 10 Then
  strMonth = "0" & strMonth
End If
GetFormattedDate = strYear & "-" & strMonth & "-" & strDay
End Function
%>

And then in the body, your element should look something like this

<input name="today" type="date" value="<%= GetFormattedDate(now) %>" />

Cheers!

Answer 3

by Javascript:

var today = new Date();

document.getElementById("theDate").value = today.getFullYear() + '-' + ('0' + (today.getMonth() + 1)).slice(-2) + '-' + ('0' + today.getDate()).slice(-2);

Answer 4

<input id="datePicker" type="date" />

$(document).ready( function() {
    var now = new Date();
 
    var day = ("0" + now.getDate()).slice(-2);
    var month = ("0" + (now.getMonth() + 1)).slice(-2);

    var today = now.getFullYear()+"-"+(month)+"-"+(day) ;


   $('#datePicker').val(today);
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input id="datePicker" type="date" />

Answer 5

In HTML5 as such, there is no way to set the default value of the date field to today’s date? As shown in other answers, the value can be set using JavaScript, and this is usually the best approach if you wish to set the default according to what is current date to the user when the page is loaded.

HTML5 defines the valueAsDate property for input type=date elements, and using it, you could set the initial value directly from an object created e.g. by new Date(). However, e.g. IE 10 does not know that property. (It also lacks genuine support to input type=date, but that’s a different issue.)

So in practice you need to set the value property, and it must be in ISO 8601 conformant notation. Nowadays this can be done rather easily, since we can expect currenty used browsers to support the toISOString method:

<input type=date id=e>
<script>
document.getElementById('e').value = new Date().toISOString().substring(0, 10);
</script>

Answer 6

Thanks peter, now i change my code.

<input type='date' id='d1' name='d1'>

<script type="text/javascript">
var d1 = new Date();
var y1= d1.getFullYear();
var m1 = d1.getMonth()+1;
if(m1<10)
    m1="0"+m1;
var dt1 = d1.getDate();
if(dt1<10)
dt1 = "0"+dt1;
var d2 = y1+"-"+m1+"-"+dt1;
document.getElementById('d1').value=d2;
</script>