How do you set a textbox value to the equivalent of DateTime.Now in Javascript? I tried these
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now %>');
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now.ToString() %>');
Both set the value to the literal string <%= System.DateTime... instead of the time.
How do you set a textbox value to the equivalent of DateTime.Now in Javascript? I tried these
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now %>');
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now.ToString() %>');
Both set the value to the literal string <%= System.DateTime... instead of the time.
Share Improve this question asked Nov 19, 2010 at 21:47 PrabhuPrabhu 13.4k34 gold badges135 silver badges215 bronze badges 4- 2 Is this in your code-front (.aspx/.ascx) or in an external .js file? – Kirk Woll Commented Nov 19, 2010 at 21:52
- it's in an external js file... – Prabhu Commented Nov 19, 2010 at 21:55
- I tried some of the solutions posted below (by MPD and Mister Cook), but it always returns the originally loaded time...it doesn't seem to run DateTime.Now each time the function is called. Wonder what I'm not doing right... – Prabhu Commented Nov 19, 2010 at 22:52
- 1 @Prabhu if you want the time from the server each time you will need to make a request each time. Once the server sends the page the time value is set at client and will not change. Look at making an Ajax request to a server side function decorated as a web method so you can call it with an Ajax request. jQuery makes this quite easy. – Dave Anderson Commented Nov 19, 2010 at 23:25
5 Answers
Reset to default 2Add a javascript function in the aspx which simply returns the server tag, then call this function from your .js file. i.e. in the ASPX add:
function GetTimeNow () { return '<%= System.DateTime.Now.ToString() %>';}
You can't put server tags in a javascript file.
You have to put the code in a file that is handled by the ASP.NET engine, e.g. your .aspx file.
(It's possible to configure the server so that the ASP.NET engine also handles .js files, but that's not a good solution. Javascript files are cached more extensively than regular pages, so it's not certain that the server executes the code each time the file is used.)
Do you have them inside <script> tags on the aspx page?
The aspx page should look something like this
<html xmlns="http://www.w3/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<script type="text/javascript">
//put your JAVASCRIPT here
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now %>');
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val('<%= System.DateTime.Now.ToString() %>');
</script>
</form>
</body>
</html>
That code is fine. The problem is that your <%= System.DateTime.Now %> code is not being parsed as server side code. What's the rest of the page look like?
Edit:
Since it's in an external JS file, you could always rename the ".js" file to ".aspx" so that ASP.Net would start processing it. Then you'd just have to change your <script> tags to use the ".aspx" name instead.
The other option is to configure your server to send ".js" files through the ASP.Net handler.
How about writing out the time on the main .aspx page in the header
<script type="text/javascript">
var now = <%= System.DateTime.Now %>;
</script>
and then doing
$('#LastUpdatedTime').val(now);
You just need to make sure that you name things appropriately so that the JS in the external file gets the value from the global scope.