Html – How to set input type date’s default value to today

datehtmlinput

Given an input element:

<input type="date" />

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

Best Answer

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"