Lawrence said:
If you're going to have a button to do it, then the button might as well
invoke a JavaScript sequence to fill in the field. No sense bothering
the server with something this simple.
If JavaScript is enabled, the following example will do what
the OP wants:
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
function getDate()
{
alert("getting date...");
var d = new Date();
var s = d.toLocaleString();
alert(s);
return s;
}
function setDate()
{
alert("Setting date");
document.getElementById("myDate").value = getDate();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form name="form1">
Date: <input type="text" id="myDate" size="20" />
<br /><br />
<input type="button" value="Today's Date" onclick="setDate();">
</form>
</body>
</html>
However, if JS is not enabled (as I often surf, given how
requisite JS is for many attack vectors and popups...thank
goodness for the NoScript plugin for FireFox which allows me
to whitelist sites allowed to use JS), your only hope is to
round-trip the server where your CGI/mod_python/whatever
script is sitting generating the page. Or populate the
field by default (using 'value="1/2/03"' attribute on your
textbox) when creating the field and let the user change it
if needed. The ideal is to prepopulate the field to the
most frequently used value so that the user has as little
work to do as possible.
You'll find some great tools on JavaScript over at the
http://www.w3schools.com site where you can experiment with
their TryIt editor. That will at least allow you to tinker
with the JS. You haven't provided enough details regarding
your web-scripting environment (Django, CGI, TG, mod_python...)
-tkc
