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

html date input
Ian Brown picture Ian Brown · Aug 8, 2011 · Viewed 878.2k times · Source

The 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

Tak picture Tak · Aug 8, 2011

Like any HTML input field, the browser will leave it empty unless a default value is specified with the value attribute.

Unfortunately HTML5 doesn't provide a way of specifying 'today' in the value attribute (that I can see), only a RFC3339 valid date like 2011-09-29.

TL;DR Use YYYY-MM-DD date format or it won't display

Related questions

Is there any way to change input type="date" format?

I'm working with HTML5 elements on my webpage. By default input type="date" shows date as YYYY-MM-DD. The question is, is it possible to change its format to something like: DD-MM-YYYY?

Read More
How to set date format in HTML date input tag?

I am wondering whether it is possible to set the date format in the html <input type="date"></input> tag... Currently it is yyyy-mm-dd, while I need it in the dd-mm-yyyy format.

Read More
Implement an input with a mask

I would like to implement a mask for a text input field which accepts a date. The masked value should display directly inside of the input. Something like this: <input type='text' value='____/__/__'> I wrote the …

Read More