Auto insert date and time in form input field?

Question

Using javascript, how can we auto insert the current DATE and TIME into a form input field.

I'm building a "Problems" form to keep track of user submitted complaints about a certain service. I'm collecting as much info as possible. I want to save the staff here from having to manually enter the date and time each time they open the form.

I have this snippet of code:

<input id="date" name="date" value="javascript:document.write(Date()+'.')"/>

but it's not working.

many thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Javascript won't execute within a value attribute. You could do something like this, though:

<input id="date" name="date">

<script type="text/javascript">
  document.getElementById('date').value = Date();
</script>

You'd probably want to format the date as you prefer, because the default output of Date() looks something like: Tue Jun 16 2009 10:47:10 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time). See this SO question for info about formatting a date.