Angular.js and HTML5 date input value -- how to get Firefox to show a readable date value in a date input?
JavascriptHtmlFormsDateAngularjsJavascript Problem Overview
I have an HTML5 date input and I would like its value to be set to the value of the date property in my model by default. I'm not too fussy about formatting since Chrome seems to decide that for me anyway based on my locale, but ideally the format would be consistently dd/MM/yyyy
.
This is how I set up my input:
<input type="date"
ng-model="date"
value="{{ date | date: 'yyyy-MM-dd' }}" />
This works fine on Chrome, and I see the following by default:
(I still don't quite understand why the value had to be given in yyyy-MM-dd
, if Chrome still formats it based on my locale, but that's a different question.)
My issue is with Firefox not showing the date's value in the way I've specified. I think this has to do with binding the input to the date
model, because I can specify pretty much any string in the value
attribute, and I will still see the long date string in the input by default:
If I remove ng-model="date"
from the input tag, Firefox nicely displays any value I give it. I didn't think the model that an input was bound to actually had any effect on its default value?
I understand the date input isn't supported universally, but seeing as it's supposed to fall back on a simple text input, I don't see why its value won't simply be 2013-08-05
, as specified by angular's date filter.
So, how do I get Firefox to accept my formatted value in the date input?
NOTE After the edits have been done by the user, I will of course perform validation and convert each date input value into a proper Date
object. Not sure if this is relevant to the question, but putting it out there just in case, because the input formats would obviously need to be consistent for the date conversion to work the same in all browsers. Problematic, of course, with Chrome deciding the input format for me...
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
The problem is that value
is ignored when ng-model
is present.
Firefox, which doesn't currently support type="date"
, will convert all the values to string. Since you (rightly) want date
to be a real Date
object and not a string, I think the best choice is to create another variable, for instance dateString
, and then link the two variables:
<input type="date" ng-model="dateString" />
function MainCtrl($scope, dateFilter) {
$scope.date = new Date();
$scope.$watch('date', function (date)
{
$scope.dateString = dateFilter(date, 'yyyy-MM-dd');
});
$scope.$watch('dateString', function (dateString)
{
$scope.date = new Date(dateString);
});
}
The actual structure is for demonstration purposes only. You'd be better off creating your own directive, especially in order to:
- allow formats other than
yyyy-MM-dd
, - be able to use
NgModelController#$formatters
andNgModelController#$parsers
rather than the artificaldateString
variable (see the documentation on this subject).
Please notice that I've used yyyy-MM-dd
, because it's a format directly supported by the JavaScript Date
object. In case you want to use another one, you must make the conversion yourself.
EDIT
Here is a way to make a clean directive:
myModule.directive(
'dateInput',
function(dateFilter) {
return {
require: 'ngModel',
template: '<input type="date"></input>',
replace: true,
link: function(scope, elm, attrs, ngModelCtrl) {
ngModelCtrl.$formatters.unshift(function (modelValue) {
return dateFilter(modelValue, 'yyyy-MM-dd');
});
ngModelCtrl.$parsers.unshift(function(viewValue) {
return new Date(viewValue);
});
},
};
});
That's a basic directive, there's still a lot of room for improvement, for example:
- allow the use of a custom format instead of
yyyy-MM-dd
, - check that the date typed by the user is correct.
Solution 2 - Javascript
Why the value had to be given in yyyy-MM-dd?
According to the input type = date spec of HTML 5, the value has to be in the format yyyy-MM-dd
since it takes the format of a valid full-date
which is specified in RFC3339 as
full-date = date-fullyear "-" date-month "-" date-mday
There is nothing to do with Angularjs since the directive input doesn't support date
type.
How do I get Firefox to accept my formatted value in the date input?
FF doesn't support date
type of input for at least up to the version 24.0. You can get this info from here. So for right now, if you use input with type being date
in FF, the text box takes whatever value you pass in.
My suggestion is you can use Angular-ui's Timepicker and don't use the HTML5 support for the date input.
Solution 3 - Javascript
You can use this, it works fine:
<input type="date" class="form1"
value="{{date | date:MM/dd/yyyy}}"
ng-model="date"
name="id"
validatedateformat
data-date-format="mm/dd/yyyy"
maxlength="10"
id="id"
calendar
maxdate="todays"
ng-click="openCalendar('id')">
<span class="input-group-addon">
<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-calendar" ng-click="openCalendar('id')"></span>
</span>
</input>
Solution 4 - Javascript
In my case, I have solved this way:
$scope.MyObject = // get from database or other sources;
$scope.MyObject.Date = new Date($scope.MyObject.Date);
and input type date is ok
Solution 5 - Javascript
I've used ng-change:
Date.prototype.addDays = function(days) {
var dat = new Date(this.valueOf());
dat.setDate(dat.getDate() + days);
return dat;
}
var app = angular.module('myApp', []);
app.controller('DateController', ['$rootScope', '$scope',
function($rootScope, $scope) {
function init() {
$scope.startDate = new Date();
$scope.endDate = $scope.startDate.addDays(14);
}
function load() {
alert($scope.startDate);
alert($scope.endDate);
}
init();
// public methods
$scope.load = load;
$scope.setStart = function(date) {
$scope.startDate = date;
};
$scope.setEnd = function(date) {
$scope.endDate = date;
};
}
]);
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>
<div data-ng-controller="DateController">
<label class="item-input"> <span class="input-label">Start</span>
<input type="date" data-ng-model="startDate" ng-change="setStart(startDate)" required validatedateformat calendar>
</label>
<label class="item-input"> <span class="input-label">End</span>
<input type="date" data-ng-model="endDate" ng-change="setEnd(endDate)" required validatedateformat calendar>
</label>
<button button="button" ng-disabled="planningForm.$invalid" ng-click="load()" class="button button-positive">
Run
</button>
</div <label class="item-input"> <span class="input-label">Start</span>
<input type="date" data-ng-model="startDate" ng-change="setStart(startDate)" required validatedateformat calendar>
</label>
<label class="item-input"> <span class="input-label">End</span>
<input type="date" data-ng-model="endDate" ng-change="setEnd(endDate)" required validatedateformat calendar>
</label>
Solution 6 - Javascript
Check this fully functional directive for MEAN.JS (Angular.js, bootstrap, Express.js and MongoDb)
Based on @Blackhole ´s response, we just finished it to be used with mongodb and express.
It will allow you to save and load dates from a mongoose connector
Hope it Helps!!
angular.module('myApp')
.directive(
'dateInput',
function(dateFilter) {
return {
require: 'ngModel',
template: '<input type="date" class="form-control"></input>',
replace: true,
link: function(scope, elm, attrs, ngModelCtrl) {
ngModelCtrl.$formatters.unshift(function (modelValue) {
return dateFilter(modelValue, 'yyyy-MM-dd');
});
ngModelCtrl.$parsers.push(function(modelValue){
return angular.toJson(modelValue,true)
.substring(1,angular.toJson(modelValue).length-1);
})
}
};
});
The JADE/HTML:
div(date-input, ng-model="modelDate")
Solution 7 - Javascript
If using Angular Material Design, you can use the datepicker component there and this will work in Firefox, IE etc.
https://material.angularjs.org/latest/demo/datepicker
Fair warning though - personal experience is that there are problems with this, and seemingly it is being re-worked at present. See here: