jQuery UI DatePicker: Disable Specified Days

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jQuery Calendar Picker

One project I'm currently working on requires jQuery. The project also features a datepicker for requesting a visit to their location. jQuery UI's DatePicker plugin was the natural choice and it does a really nice job. One challenge I encountered was the need to prevent specific days from being picked. Here's the jQuery JavaScript I used to accomplish that.

The jQuery JavaScript

/* create an array of days which need to be disabled */
var disabledDays = ["2-21-2010","2-24-2010","2-27-2010","2-28-2010","3-3-2010","3-17-2010","4-2-2010","4-3-2010","4-4-2010","4-5-2010"];

/* utility functions */
function nationalDays(date) {
	var m = date.getMonth(), d = date.getDate(), y = date.getFullYear();
	//console.log('Checking (raw): ' + m + '-' + d + '-' + y);
	for (i = 0; i < disabledDays.length; i++) {
		if($.inArray((m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y,disabledDays) != -1 || new Date() > date) {
			//console.log('bad:  ' + (m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y + ' / ' + disabledDays[i]);
			return [false];
		}
	}
	//console.log('good:  ' + (m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y);
	return [true];
}
function noWeekendsOrHolidays(date) {
	var noWeekend = jQuery.datepicker.noWeekends(date);
	return noWeekend[0] ? nationalDays(date) : noWeekend;
}

/* create datepicker */
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
	jQuery('#date').datepicker({
		minDate: new Date(2010, 0, 1),
		maxDate: new Date(2010, 5, 31),
		dateFormat: 'DD, MM, d, yy',
		constrainInput: true,
		beforeShowDay: noWeekendsOrHolidays
	});
});

The base code is taken from this forum post. You'll note that I created an array of dates in string format which also accommodates for comparing year.

I'd like to see jQuery UI implement a standard way of disabling days. Their DatePicker is very nice though so I can't complain too much!

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Discussion

  1. I have to admit, I wish Mootools came with such a wide variaty of UI plugins…

    All and all, I think you accomplished your goal very well! Good stuff.

  2. Salih Gedik

    Nice. But I rarely need jQ. Mootools FTW isn’t it?

  3. Nice post! Can be easily expanded by populating he “disabledDays” using PHP to find all weekends, holidays, etc. I wonder what the performance impact is though if you span across several years as a typical selection might allow?

  4. @mark: you should try this Mootools DatePicker (also works for time): http://www.monkeyphysics.com/mootools/script/2/datepicker

    Doesn’t have a beforeShowDay option though…

  5. I would remove all the MooTools helpers :) and just use the jQuery native $.inArray function:

    Change this line: ArrayContains(disabledDays,(m+1) + ‘-‘ + d + ‘-‘ + y) to this instead: $.inArray(disabledDays,(m+1) + ‘-‘ + d + ‘-‘ + y) != -1

    Then you don’t need to two other functions from MooTools.

  6. @Douglas Neiner: Sorry, flip the arguments. $.inArray( value, array )

  7. @Douglas Neiner: I’m a complete MooTools nerd — I didn’t even think to check the jQuery API. Will update.

  8. Interesting dilema and solution. My problem with the jQuery Datepicker is figuring out how to store selected start and end dates in a cookie.

  9. Brad Zickafoose

    Is it possible to have the DatePicker block out today’s date as well as past dates from being selected, only allowing tomorrow and future dates available for selection?

  10. @Brad Zickafoose: The code above actually automatically disables today and all previous days.

  11. Brad Zickafoose

    @David Walsh: oh nice… silly me. :-)

  12. James

    Hi,

    This code is nice, very helpful. But I am pretty new to jQuery, in asp.net I use some code to generate the dates in the array but the single digits are formatted with a zero like 01 for January etc. So when my arrays are formatted they use zero and the dates are not being blocked out on the calendar, could anyone advise the best solution so that the code will accept 0x numbers?

    Many thanks.

  13. Thanks David!

    I built an internal application for my department and I am using the datepicker plugin as well. I don’t think anyone will ever select a day on the weekend. I might as well disable it too.

  14. Oh wait, apparently there’s already a built-in function for removing weekends!

    Thanks for the script though.

  15. Neha

    Hello,

    Really nice plugin! Can we do that same with mootools???
    Any link??

    thanks!!

  16. Thanks for the great plugin. This is the best version of datepicker I found, and I tested many. The blocked dates, and blocked current date are exactly what I needed. It was easy for a beginner like me to implement.

  17. nyett

    hi, do you know how to take the national days from MySQL database and disable those days on datepicker?? need your help plssssss

  18. Jonathan

    How do you edit this to include the current date?

  19. Jonathan

    How do you edit this to include todays date?

  20. Please someone write normal Datepicker as Jquery has in Mootools!

  21. First off, great script from what I can understand… I just started to teach myself javascript and I can’t seem to to enable the weekends so I can just make a custom array for the two months i need the calendar for (Fri/Sat in Sept, and our operating schedule in Oct this year)

    How would I go about doing this?

  22. Boni

    yeah i need to include todays date also.. thanks

  23. Boni

    i created a 2nd textbox and now i have 2 ‘#firstDate’ and ‘#endDate’

    i want ‘#endDate’ display dates the same date as #firstDate’ with future dates. Possible? thanks

  24. nyett

    @Boni: do you want the EndDate has the same that as FirstDate or the EndDate disable the dates before the firstDate??

  25. nyett

    @Boni: do you want the EndDate has the same that as FirstDate or the EndDate disable the dates before the firstDate?? So, the endDate always bigger than the firstDate.

  26. Yun

    Wht do i have to do make it to disable dates between “2-21-2010” and “2-24-2010”?

  27. mitja.GTI

    Hi,
    all i see is every date disabled in you demo. This i could really use, so i would love you to update this post with a working solution.
    Thanks.

  28. mitja.GTI

    Hi,
    all i see is every date disabled in you demo. This i could really use, so i would love you to update this post with a working solution.
    Thanks.

  29. Matt

    Maybe I’m just missing something, but why is there a for loop in this code? It seems like you are simply doing the $.inArray multiple times on the same date. Amy I missing something?

  30. Checked the demo it was not working, so just update line #9 with the following code and it is working for me now!!!.

    if($.inArray((m+1) + ‘-‘ + d + ‘-‘ + y,disabledDays) != -1 )

  31. Thank you for sharing this, huge time saver!!!

  32. Hey David,

    your site is very nice, but when i open the calendar no date is enabled. What shall I do?

    Bye Thomas

  33. Séb

    Hello there,

    Nice read.

    I have a question though,

    How can i disable all the day before the current date ?

    Regards, Séb.

    • Harish

      Use this:

      minDate: 0

      its more easy and efficient.

    • Seb I wanted the same result – to disable all previous dates but I cant seem to get your version working. Old dates are still selectable using the below:

      function noBefore(date){
      if (date < new Date()){
      return [false];
      }
      return [true];
      }
      
      jQuery(document).ready(function() {
        jQuery('#datepicker').datepicker({
          minDate: new Date(2011, 5, 1),
          dateFormat: 'dd/mm/yy',
          constrainInput: true,
          beforeShowDay: noBefore
        });
      });
      

      @Harish: Wasn't sure what minDate was meant to replace.

      I''m not a coder so I'm just grabbing code here and trying to mesh it together.

  34. Jeremy

    Great post, however I’d like to know how to do this on several different datepickers on the same form with varying different selections. i.e. one datepicker can only chooses saturdays and the other can only pick sundays. Any idea?

    • Matt

      Jeremy,

      You are simply telling the object to call noWeekendsOrHolidays before displaying each date. So if you have two date pickers, you are going to have to initializations and you can simply have each initialization call separate functions.

      Hope I didn’t misunderstand the question. Hope that helps.

      Matt

  35. Thanks alot for that very helpfull post, David!

  36. Jon

    From the code above, what is the point of this for loop? It seems that disabledDays[i] is only used in a comment.

    for (i = 0; i  date) {
          //console.log('bad:  ' + (m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y + ' / ' + disabledDays[i]);
          return [false];
        }
      }
    

    I changed it to:

    if($.inArray((m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y,disabledDays) != -1 || new Date() > date) {
          //console.log('bad:  ' + (m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y + ' / ' + disabledDays[i]);
          return [false];
        }
    

    This is much faster because we are not iterating on the disabledDays array.

  37. Sadaf Chohan

    Thankx for such a brilliant script it solved my problem in few hours … i modified it according to my requirement … My requirement was to highlight the user defined days on the calendar … Thank you so much for this helping code it was real useful and easy to understand

    • Hi Sadaf

      Can you please share your code on fiddle? Looks like your hard work can save my hours. Thanks.

  38. I couldn’t get this to work for some reason, it just disabled weekends and did not disable any of the dates in the disabledDays array.

    Here is what I did: http://tokenposts.blogspot.com/2011/05/jquery-datepicker-disable-specific.html

  39. whoops…fixed code post:

    function noBefore(date){
    if (date < new Date()){
    return [false];
    }
    return [true];
    }
    
    /* create datepicker & timepicker*/
    jQuery(document).ready(function() {
      jQuery('#datepicker').datepicker({
        minDate: new Date(2011, 5, 1),
        dateFormat: 'dd/mm/yy',
        constrainInput: true,
        beforeShowDay: noBefore
      });
    });
    
  40. Virendra Dugar

    Well, there is a better way to disable only the weekends.

    $(function() {
       $('#').datepicker({ 
           beforeShowDay: $.datepicker.noWeekends 
       });
    });
    

    http://jquerybyexample.blogspot.com/2010/07/disable-weekends-in-jquery-ui.html

  41. Virendra Dugar

    Well, there is a better way to disable only the weekends.

    $(function() {
       $('#').datepicker({ 
           beforeShowDay: $.datepicker.noWeekends 
       });
    });
    

    http://jquerybyexample.blogspot.com/2010/07/disable-weekends-in-jquery-ui.html

  42. See also http://stefangabos.ro/jquery/zebra-datepicker/ where the disabling of dates is much easier using a syntax similar to cron’s

  43. Damn it David. Is there anything your blog does not have. All the solutions are here. Thank you very much :)

  44. Gulio

    Thanks for this nice code. Is there any simple way to just only disable the disableddays, but keep showing the weekends?

    Thanks already!

  45. Gulio

    Fixed already:

    return [0] ? nationalDays(date) : noWeekend;

  46. jitesh

    Hi, david can you please tell me how can i change css of specific dates..?

  47. Thom

    Thanks a bunch! Your walk-through totally did the trick on a resort-booking application I’m working on!

  48. chris

    Hi, nice script. Just a question though, you can set a date range but there should be a check if the min date has passed, to change it to current day. Isn’t that right?

    cheers

    • chris

      stupid me.. this code works

      function noBefore(date){
      if (date < new Date()){
      return [false];
      }
      return [true];
      }
      
      /* create datepicker & timepicker*/
      jQuery(document).ready(function() {
      jQuery('#datepicker').datepicker({
      minDate: new Date(2011, 5, 1),
      dateFormat: 'dd/mm/yy',
      constrainInput: true,
      beforeShowDay: noBefore
      });
      });
      
  49. Greg

    Good Day David

    Thank you for the example.

    I am wanting to know if it is all possible for a cutoff time to be implemented into your code.

    For example if the time is =>15h30 then go to the next valid date.

    Your help would be greatly appreciated

    Regards

    Greg

  50. Julio Vedovatto

    This article helped me a lot to solve a similar problem.

    Thanks a lot for writing this article :D

    Cheers

  51. I have a problem with the implementation of ‘jQuery datepicker’ in my web project.
    I Have a ‘mysql’ query result and I want integrate into the function ‘disabledDays’ for the datepicker calendar.
    Your help will be very important to me project.

    Following the code I’m working with:

    $(function() {      
         var disabledDays = ['????????????'];
    function disableAllTheseDays(date) {
        var m = date.getMonth(), d = date.getDate(), y = date.getFullYear();
        for (i = 0; i < disabledDays.length; i++) {
            if($.inArray((m+1) + '-' + d + '-' + y,disabledDays) != -1) {
                return [false];
            }
        }
        return [true];
    }

    grateful:

  52. Helped me a lot! thank you :-)

  53. adnan

    I have implemented jquery date and time picker. i want to include the above javascript in my jquery. i don’t know how to do this. i have the following files in my script folder.

    and here is my code of Default.aspx javascript code

        $(document).ready(function () {
            $(".Calender").dynDateTime({
                showsTime: true,
                ifFormat: "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M",
                daFormat: "%l;%M %p, %e %m,  %Y",
                align: "BR",
                electric: false,
                singleClick: false,
                displayArea: ".siblings('.dtcDisplayArea')",
                button: ".next()"
            });
        });
    

    i don’t know in which file i should include it and how i should call it.
    Please if any body can help reply.

  54. adnan

    here is the list of my script files. i tried to include it in previous comments but it does not.
    “Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js”
    “Scripts/jquery.dynDateTime.min.js”
    “Scripts/calendar-en.min.js”

  55. Philip

    David,
    Thank you for your example. I was wondering if it is possible to have both disabled dates as well as highlighted dates on the same datepicker. I have tried several things but to no avail. We have dates that our campus is not open for visits, open to individual scheduled visits, and then visits that are special events. I need to be able to show those special event days along with the closed days.

  56. Winston

    @Jon …. good catch!

  57. Winston

    Fantastic addition to an already amazing collection of articles David!

    Many thanks indeedy!

  58. I don’t know when your post was written vs. when the jQuery Datepicker widget was updated, but Datepicker supports this functionality out of the box. Just take a look at the API for the “beforeShowDay” function:

    http://api.jqueryui.com/datepicker/#option-beforeShowDay

  59. Siva

    Thanks, its works well. Can i get disable date from database? How?

  60. I need to disable only a specific days, not weekends or others.

    How can I achieve that?

  61. Yoe

    Hi my friend, i have more one datepicker on self page, but they catch the disabled the same day, as I solve this?, I call the id of each but the same function. thank you

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