# Editor example Date and time input

Editor's built in `datetime` field type provides a UI widget to assist with the user input of both dates and times - the components that are displayed in the input control are automatically determined from the `format` string.

In this case we have two fields which contain both date and time components, shown in different formats to illustrate how the formatting options operate. The Updated date field is shown in a US style date format with a 12 hour clock while the Registered date is shown with a more Euro style format and a 24 hour clock.

The formats are defined by the Moment.js library which must be included for the `datetime` field type to operate with date time formatted strings (note that Luxon can also be used with `datetime`).

First name | Last name | Updated date | Registered date
--- | --- | --- | ---

- JavaScript
- HTML
- CSS
- Ajax
- Server-side script

The JavaScript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

`DataTable.datetime('D MMM YYYY HH:mm'); DataTable.datetime('MM-DD-YYYY h:mm A'); const editor = new DataTable.Editor({ ajax: '../php/datetime.php', fields: [ { label: 'First name:', name: 'first_name' }, { label: 'Last name:', name: 'last_name' }, { label: 'Updated date:', name: 'updated_date', type: 'datetime', def: () => new Date(), format: 'MM-DD-YYYY h:mm A', fieldInfo: 'US style m-d-y date input with 12 hour clock' }, { label: 'Registered date:', name: 'registered_date', type: 'datetime', def: () => new Date(), format: 'D MMM YYYY HH:mm', fieldInfo: 'Euro style date with 24 hour clock' } ], table: '#example' }); const table = new DataTable('#example', { ajax: '../php/datetime.php', columns: [ { data: 'first_name' }, { data: 'last_name' }, { data: 'updated_date' }, { data: 'registered_date' } ], layout: { topStart: { buttons: [ { extend: 'create', editor: editor }, { extend: 'edit', editor: editor }, { extend: 'remove', editor: editor } ] } }, select: true });`

In addition to the above code, the following JavaScript library files are loaded for use in this example:

The HTML shown below is the raw HTML table element, before it has been enhanced by DataTables:

This example uses a little bit of additional CSS beyond what is loaded from the library files (below), in order to correctly display the table. The additional CSS used is shown below:

``

The following CSS library files are loaded for use in this example to provide the styling of the table:

This table loads data by Ajax. The latest data that has been loaded is shown below. This data will update automatically as any additional data is loaded.

The script used to perform the server-side processing for this table is shown below. Please note that this is just an example script using PHP. Server-side processing scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the DataTables documentation.