How do I pre-populate a jQuery Datepicker textbox with today s date

Question

I have a very simple jQuery Datepicker calendar:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#date_pretty").datepicker({ 
    });
});

and in the HTML

<input type="text" size="10" value="" id="date_pretty"/>

Today's date is nicely highlighted for the user when they bring up the calendar, but how do I get jQuery to pre-populate the textbox itself with today's date on page load, without the user doing anything? 99% of the time, the today's date default will be what they want.

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

You must FIRST call datepicker() > then use 'setDate' to get the current date.

$(".date-pick").datepicker();
$(".date-pick").datepicker("setDate", new Date());

OR chain your setDate method call after your datepicker initialization, as noted in a comment on this answer

$('.date-pick').datepicker({ /* optional option parameters... */ })
               .datepicker("setDate", new Date());

It will NOT work with just

$(".date-pick").datepicker("setDate", new Date());

Hope this works!!