Getting HTML Datepickers to Display Bound Data Correctly

I was trying to get a HTML datepicker to show the underlying data that it was bound to, but was running into issues with the date format. The datepicker would display the date as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD, but my backend API expected the date in the same format. I needed to ensure that the date was converted to the correct format for use.

After some research and experimentation, I found the solution. The key is to use the date pipe in Angular to format the date correctly.

The Problem

When using a HTML datepicker, the date is typically bound to a Date object in your component. However, when the date is displayed in the datepicker, it is displayed as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD. This can cause issues if your backend API expects the date in a different format.

The Solution

To solve this issue, you can use the date pipe in Angular to format the date correctly. The date pipe takes a date object and formats it as a string in the specified format.

Here is an example of how to use the date pipe to format the date correctly:

<td><input type="date" class="form-control" id="end_date" name="end_date"
          [value]="u.end_date | date:'yyyy-MM-dd'" required></td>

In this example, the date pipe is used to format the end_date property of the u object as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD. The [value] binding is used to bind the formatted date string to the value attribute of the datepicker.

How it Works

When the datepicker is rendered, the date pipe is executed and formats the end_date property as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD. The formatted date string is then bound to the value attribute of the datepicker, which displays the date correctly.