CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-rails
Arcath
Arcath

Reputation: 4391

Set the default value for date_field in rails 4

I have a few forms in my application which where using date_select and I've just changed to using date_field (which uses the HTML5 form elements) the only issue I'm having is that date_select would default to todays date which was perfect for us but date_field is defaulting to dd/mm/yyyy instead.

I'm running into issues with people blindly submitting the form and triggering validation errors.

Is it possible to default date_field to today?

Upvotes: 22

Views: 21478

Answers (8)

Mike Vallano
Mike Vallano

Reputation: 326

None of these options worked for me, trying to use a date_field_tag.

What did work is passing the value like this:

date_field_tag(:my_thing_end_date, :end_date, value: Date.current.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

From the docs ( http://apidock.com/rails/v4.0.2/ActionView/Helpers/FormHelper/date_field)

The default value is generated by trying to call “to_date” on the object’s value, which makes it behave as expected for instances of DateTime and ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone.

So passing the date as a string that would be entered by the user seems to be the solution.

Also, according to this good info on dates and time zones, Date.current is preferable to Time.today: https://robots.thoughtbot.com/its-about-time-zones.

Upvotes: 2

Jemima
Jemima

Reputation: 378

Setting the :value, as many of these answers suggest, will overwrite a value that is passed in for any record being edited. This is not a problem if the form is only for new entries, but buggy if you want to edit records in the form. One way around this is to grab the existing object explicitly, as Michael suggests.

The solution I'm currently using is in the Controller, which sets the value to today when it builds the new record. Assuming your model is Person, and the value you want to default is start_date:

def new
    @person = Person.new(start_date: Date.current)
end

You can then just use the value in the form without any additional fuss. 

f.date_field :start_date

Upvotes: 6

David
David

Reputation: 19

In Rails for you can also do following: ' <%= f.date_field :birthday, :value => Date.today %>

Upvotes: 0

vanboom
vanboom

Reputation: 1332

f.date_field :birthday, :default=>Date.today.strftime("%d/%m/%Y")

Upvotes: 1

Michael
Michael

Reputation: 7374

Using Time object for a date field didn't work for me, I had to use the Date object.

  1. I used a placeholder for browsers like Safari to guide them to the proper formatting if it is rendering as a text field.
  2. Also if the value already exist (such as when you are in the #edit action) it needs to use that value instead

Resulting view code for Rails 4: 

<%= f.date_field :birthday, placeholder: "YYYY-MM-DD", value: (f.object.birthday || Date.today.to_s(:db)) %>

Upvotes: 0

azihsoyn
azihsoyn

Reputation: 316

If you installed Rails4 via gem, it has below bug yet.

https://github.com/rails/rails/commits/master/actionview/lib/action_view/helpers/tags/datetime_field.rb

Fix above and you can set default value like this

<%= f.date_field :birthday, :value => Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d') %>

Upvotes: 30

SSR
SSR

Reputation: 6438

This will run correctly :

<%= f.date_field :birthday, :value => Time.now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")  %>

Upvotes: 2

techvineet
techvineet

Reputation: 5111

You can set the default date_field like this

date_field("user", "born_on", value: Time.now.to_s(:db))

Upvotes: 2

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