pre-populating date input field with Javascript
Why Not to Use toISOString()
The <input type='date'> field takes a value in ISO8601 format (reference), but you should not use the Date.prototype.toISOString() function for its value because, before outputting an ISO8601 string, it converts/represents the date/time to UTC standard time (read: changes the time zone) (reference). Unless you happen to be working in or want that time standard, you will introduce a bug where your date will sometimes, but not always, change.
Populate HTML5 Date Input from Date Object w/o Time Zone Change
The only reliable way to get a proper input value for <input type='date'> without messing with the time zone that I've seen is to manually use the date component getters. We pad each component according to the HTML date format specification (reference):
let d = new Date();
let datestring = d.getFullYear().toString().padStart(4, '0') + '-' + (d.getMonth()+1).toString().padStart(2, '0') + '-' + d.getDate().toString().padStart(2, '0');
document.getElementById('date').value = datestring;
/* Or if you want to use jQuery...
$('#date').val(datestring);
*/<input id='date' type='date'>Populate HTML5 Date & Time Fields from Date Object w/o Time Zone Change
This is beyond the scope of the original question, but for anyone wanting to populate both date & time HTML5 input fields from a Date object, here is what I came up with:
// Returns a 2-member array with date & time strings that can be provided to an
// HTML5 input form field of type date & time respectively. Format will be
// ['2020-12-15', '01:27:36'].
function getHTML5DateTimeStringsFromDate(d) {
// Date string
let ds = d.getFullYear().toString().padStart(4, '0') + '-' + (d.getMonth()+1).toString().padStart(2, '0') + '-' + d.getDate().toString().padStart(2, '0');
// Time string
let ts = d.getHours().toString().padStart(2, '0') + ':' + d.getMinutes().toString().padStart(2, '0') + ':' + d.getSeconds().toString().padStart(2, '0');
// Return them in array
return [ds, ts];
}
// Date object
let d = new Date();
// Get HTML5-ready value strings
let dstrings = getHTML5DateTimeStringsFromDate(d);
// Populate date & time field values
document.getElementById('date').value = dstrings[0]
document.getElementById('time').value = dstrings[1]
/* Or if you want to use jQuery...
$('#date').val(dstrings[0]);
$('#time').val(dstrings[1]);
*/<input type='date' id='date'>
<input type='time' id='time' step="1">It must be set in ISO-format.
(function () {
var date = new Date().toISOString().substring(0, 10),
field = document.querySelector('#date');
field.value = date;
console.log(field.value);
})()
http://jsfiddle.net/GZ46K/