How to set input type date's default value to today?

Question

Given an input element:

<input type="date" />

Is there any way to set the default value of the date field to today's date?

Answer 1

Like any HTML input field, the browser will leave the date element empty unless a default value is specified within the value attribute. Unfortunately, HTML5 doesn't provide a way of specifying 'today' in the HTMLInputElement.prototype.value.

One must instead explicitly provide a RFC3339 formatted date (YYYY-MM-DD). For example:

element.value = "2011-09-29"

Answer 2

The JavaScript Date object provides enough built-in support for the required format to avoid doing it manually:

Add this for correct timezone support:

Date.prototype.toDateInputValue = (function() {
    var local = new Date(this);
    local.setMinutes(this.getMinutes() - this.getTimezoneOffset());
    return local.toJSON().slice(0,10);
});

jQuery:

$(document).ready( function() {
    $('#datePicker').val(new Date().toDateInputValue());
});​

Pure JS:

document.getElementById('datePicker').value = new Date().toDateInputValue();

Answer 3

Use HTMLInputElement.prototype.valueAsDate:

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

Answer 4

This relies upon PHP:

<input type="date" value="<?php echo date('Y-m-d'); ?>" />

Answer 5

You could fill the default value through JavaScript as seen here:

http://jsfiddle.net/7LXPq/

$(document).ready( function() {
    var now = new Date();
    var month = (now.getMonth() + 1);               
    var day = now.getDate();
    if (month < 10) 
        month = "0" + month;
    if (day < 10) 
        day = "0" + day;
    var today = now.getFullYear() + '-' + month + '-' + day;
    $('#datePicker').val(today);
});

I would probably put a bit of extra time to see if the month and date are single digits and prefix them with the extra zero...but this should give you an idea.

EDIT: Added check for the extra zero.

Answer 6

Follow the standard Y-m-d format, if you are using PHP

<input type="date" value="<?php echo date("Y-m-d"); ?>">

Answer 7

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 8

HTML

<input type="date" id="theDate">

JS

$(document).ready(function() {
    var date = new Date();

    var day = date.getDate();
    var month = date.getMonth() + 1;
    var year = date.getFullYear();

    if (month < 10) month = "0" + month;
    if (day < 10) day = "0" + day;

    var today = year + "-" + month + "-" + day +"T00:00";       
    $("#theDate").attr("value", today);
});

demo

If you don't want to use jQuery you can do something like this

HTML

<input type="date" id="theDate">

JS

var date = new Date();

var day = date.getDate();
var month = date.getMonth() + 1;
var year = date.getFullYear();

if (month < 10) month = "0" + month;
if (day < 10) day = "0" + day;

var today = year + "-" + month + "-" + day +"T00:00";       
document.getElementById("theDate").value = today;

demo

Answer 9

If you're doing anything related to date and time in the brower, you want to use Moment.js:

moment().format('YYYY-MM-DD');

moment() returns an object representing the current date and time. You then call its .format() method to get a string representation according to the specified format. In this case, YYYY-MM-DD.

Full example:

<input id="today" type="date">
<script>
document.getElementById('today').value = moment().format('YYYY-MM-DD');
</script>

Answer 10

Javascript

document.getElementById('date-field').value = new Date().toISOString().slice(0, 10);

Jquery

$('#date-field').val(new Date().toISOString().slice(0, 10));

Another Option

If you want to customize the date, month and year just do sum or sub as your wish 😎 For month is started form 0 that is why need to sum 1 with the month.

function today() {
        let d = new Date();
        let currDate = d.getDate();
        let currMonth = d.getMonth()+1;
        let currYear = d.getFullYear();
        return currYear + "-" + ((currMonth<10) ? '0'+currMonth : currMonth )+ "-" + ((currDate<10) ? '0'+currDate : currDate );
    }

Appy the today function

document.getElementById('date-field').value = today();

$('#date-field').val(today());

Answer 11

use moment.js to solve this issue in 2 lines, html5 date input type only accept "YYYY-MM-DD" this format. I solve my problem this way.

var today = moment().format('YYYY-MM-DD');
 $('#datePicker').val(today);

this is simplest way to solve this issue.

Answer 12

This is very much simple by applying following code, Using PHP

<input type="date" value="<?= date('Y-m-d', time()); ?>" />

Date function will return current date, by taking date in time().

Answer 13

Simplest working version I tested:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input type="date" id="date" name="date">
<script>
    $('#date').val(new Date().toJSON().slice(0,10));
</script>

Answer 14

<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 15

Very Simple, Just use server side languages like PHP,ASP,JAVA or even you can use javascript.

Here is the solution

<?php
  $timezone = "Asia/Colombo";
  date_default_timezone_set($timezone);
  $today = date("Y-m-d");
?>
<html>
  <body>
    <input type="date" value="<?php echo $today; ?>">
  </body>
</html>

Answer 16

Both top answers are incorrect.

A short one-liner that uses pure JavaScript, accounts for the local timezone and requires no extra functions to be defined:

const element = document.getElementById('date-input');
element.valueAsNumber = Date.now()-(new Date()).getTimezoneOffset()*60000;

<input id='date-input' type='date'>

This gets the current datetime in milliseconds (since epoch) and applies the timezone offset in milliseconds (minutes * 60k minutes per millisecond).

You can set the date using element.valueAsDate but then you have an extra call to the Date() constructor.

Answer 17

if you need to fill input datetime you can use this:

<input type="datetime-local" name="datetime" 
       value="<?php echo date('Y-m-d').'T'.date('H:i'); ?>" />

Answer 18

For NodeJS (Express with SWIG templates):

<input type="date" id="aDate" name="aDate" class="form-control" value="{{ Date.now() | date("Y-m-d") }}" />

Answer 19

The simplest solutions seem to overlook that UTC time will be used, including highly up-voted ones. Below is a streamlined, ES6, non-jQuery version of a couple of existing answers:

const today = (function() {
    const now = new Date();
    const month = (now.getMonth() + 1).toString().padStart(2, '0');
    const day = now.getDate().toString().padStart(2, '0');
    return `${now.getFullYear()}-${month}-${day}`;
})();

console.log(today);  // as of posting this answer: 2019-01-24

Answer 20

This is what I did in my code, I have just tested and it worked fine, input type="date" does not support to set curdate automatically, so the way I used to overcome this limitation was using PHP code a simple code like this.

<html>
<head></head>
    <body>
        <form ...>
            <?php
                echo "<label for='submission_date'>Data de submissão</label>";
                echo "<input type='date' name='submission_date' min='2012-01-01' value='" . date('Y-m-d') . "' required/>";
            ?>
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

Hope it helps!

Answer 21

This is something you really need to do server-side as each user's local time format differs, not to mention each browser behaves different.

Html Date inputs value should be in this format: yyyy-mm-dd otherwise it will not show a value.

ASP CLASSIC , OR VBSCRIPT:

current_year = DatePart("yyyy",date) 
current_month = DatePart("m",date) 
current_day = DatePart("d",date) 

IF current_month < 10 THEN
current_month = "0"&current_month
END IF
IF current_day < 10 THEN
current_day = "0"&current_day
END IF

get_date = current_year&"-"&current_month&"-"&current_day
Response.Write get_date

Output of today's date : 2019-02-08

Then in your html: <input type="date" value="<% =get_date %>"

PHP

just use this: <input type="date" value="<?= date("Y-m-d"); ?>">

Answer 22

by Javascript:

var today = new Date();

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

Answer 23

new Date().getFullYear()+"-"+ ((parseInt(new Date().getMonth())+1+100)+"").substring(1)

Answer 24

Even after all these time, it might help someone. This is simple JS solution.

JS

  let date = new Date();
  let today = date.toISOString().substr(0, 10);
  //console.log("Today: ", today);//test
  document.getElementById("form-container").innerHTML =
    '<input type="date" name="myDate" value="' + today + '" >';//inject field

HTML

 <form id="form-container"></form>

Similar solution works in Angular without any additional library to convert date format. For Angular (code is shortened due to common component code):

//so in myComponent.ts 
//Import.... @Component...etc...
date: Date = new Date();
today: String; //<- note String
//more const ...
export class MyComponent implements OnInit {
   //constructor, etc.... 
   ngOnInit() {
      this.today = this.date.toISOString().substr(0, 10);
   }
}
//so in component.html 
<input type="date" [(ngModel)]="today"  />

Answer 25

A simple solution:

<input class="set-today" type="date">
<script type="text/javascript">
    window.onload= function() {
        document.querySelector('.set-today').value=(new Date()).toISOString().substr(0,10));
    }
</script>

Answer 26

Simplest and universal answer:

<input type="date" value="2020-12-31">

PHP answer:

<input type="date" value="<?= date('Y-m-d') ?>">

Date format should always be "yyyy-mm-dd"

Answer 27

If you are using ruby you can use this to set the default value to today's date and time:

<input type="datetime-local" name="time" value="<%= Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M') %>" />

Answer 28

Since Date type only accepts the format "yyyy-MM-dd", you need to format the date value accordingly.

Here is the solution for this,

var d = new Date();
var month = d.getMonth();
var month_actual = month + 1;

if (month_actual < 10) {
  month_actual = "0"+month_actual; 
  }

var day_val = d.getDate();
if (day_val < 10) {
  day_val = "0"+day_val; 
  }

document.getElementById("datepicker_id").value = d.getFullYear()+"-"+ month_actual +"-"+day_val;

Answer 29

$(document).ready(function(){
  var date = new Date();

  var day = ("0" + date.getDate()).slice(-2); var month = ("0" + (date.getMonth() + 1)).slice(-2);

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

$('#dateid').val(today);

Answer 30

Since there's no default method of setting the value to today's date, I would say this should be dependent upon it's application. If you're looking to maximize your audience's exposure to the date picker, then use a server-side script (PHP, ASP, etc.) to set the default value.

However, if it's for the administration console of the CMS, and you know that the user will always have JS on or your site trusted, then you can safely use JS to fill the default value, as per jlbruno.