Question

I’m applying a datepicker to a form field with this date format: 'dd/mm/yy' so when the user selects a date it will be placed in that format in the field.

The problem is that field is pre-filled with a value in format yy-mm-dd, and the datepicker is showing the today date.

How can I initialize the datepicker with the field value?

I have previously used the datepicker from jQuery Tools, that automatically initializes the datepicker from the field value, but the one from jQuery UI does not have that useful functionality.

Answer 1

The way to do it is:

$('#activity_date').datepicker({ dateFormat: 'yy-mm-dd' })
$('#activity_date').datepicker("setDate", "2012-01-21")
$('#activity_date').datepicker("option", "dateFormat", "DD, d MM, yy")

Explanation:

• set the dateFormat like the one in the database
• set the date
• set the dateFormat that we want to show in the form field