HTMLModElement: dateTime property
The dateTime property of the HTMLModElement interface is a string containing a machine-readable date with an optional time value. It reflects the datetime HTML attribute of the <del> and <ins> elements.
Value
A string. For valid string formats, see the datetime valid values.
Examples
Given the following HTML:
html
<p>The paragraph <del datetime="2021-11-01">has been</del> changed</p>
We can get the value of the dateTime attribute of the <del> element:
js
const deletedText = document.querySelector("del");
console.log(deletedText.dateTime); // "2021-11-01"
We can also set the dateTime property. Here, we create an <ins> element, then set the dateTime property of the <ins> element to the current date in YYYY-MM-DD format then insert it after the deleted text:
js
const insertedText = document.createElement("ins");
const now = new Date();
insertedText.dateTime = `${now.getFullYear()}-${now.getMonth() + 1}-${now.getDate()}`;
insertedText.appendChild(document.createTextNode("was"));
deletedText.insertAdjacentElement("afterend", insertedText);
If our script ran on January 9, 2025, our HTML would be as follows:
html
<p>
The paragraph <del datetime="2021-11-01">has been</del
><ins datetime="2025-1-9">was</ins> changed
</p>