How do I get the current date in elm?

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to get the current date in elm in version .17. I see that they added a Date module to .17 but I haven't found any examples on how it's used. Has anyone figured out how to do this?

Edit: In trying to retrofit this solution, I hit another stumbling block. I'm trying to trigger setting the date and then calling another Msg to do something else. But I'm still getting {} for a date.

import Html.App as App
import Html exposing (..)
import Time exposing (Time)
import Task
import Date exposing (Date)
import Html.Events exposing (onClick)
import Html.Attributes exposing (..)

type alias Model =
  {currentDate : Maybe Date}

type Msg =
  SetDate (Maybe Date)
  | TriggerDateSet

update : Msg -> Model -> (Model, Cmd Msg)
update msg model =
  case msg of
    SetDate date ->
      ({model | currentDate = date}, Cmd.none)
    TriggerDateSet ->
      (model, now)

view : Model -> Html Msg
view model =
  div []
  [ div []
    [ button [onClick TriggerDateSet] [] ]
  , div [] [ text <| "(Optional) time at program launch was " ++ toString model ]
  ]

now : Cmd Msg
now =
  Task.perform (always (SetDate Nothing)) (Just >> SetDate) Date.now

main : Program Never
main =
  App.program
    { init = ( Model Nothing, now )
    , view = view
    , subscriptions = always Sub.none
    , update = update
    }

Answer 1

You'll want the now Task or the every Subscription from Time.

Here's an example using the former to initialise the model with the current time.

import Html.App as App
import Html exposing (..)
import Time exposing (Time)
import Task


type alias Model = 
  Maybe Time


type Msg = 
  SetTime (Maybe Time)


update : Msg -> Model -> (Model, Cmd Msg)
update (SetTime time) _ = 
  (time, Cmd.none)


view : Model -> Html Msg
view model =
  div [] [ text <| "(Optional) time at program launch was " ++ toString model ]


now : Cmd Msg
now = 
  Task.perform (Just >> SetTime) Time.now


main : Program Never
main =
  App.program 
    { init = ( Nothing, now ) 
    , view = view
    , subscriptions = always Sub.none 
    , update = update
    }