# {html_select_date}
`{html_select_date}` is a [custom function](index.md)
that creates date dropdowns. It can display any or all of: year, month,
and day. All parameters that are not in the list below are printed as
name/value-pairs inside the `` tags of day, month and year.
## Attributes
| Attribute Name | Default | Description |
|--------------------|--------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| prefix | Date_ | What to prefix the var name with |
| time | | What date/time to pre-select. Accepts timestamps, DateTime objects or any string parseable by [strtotime()](https://www.php.net/strtotime). If an array is given, the attributes field_array and prefix are used to identify the array elements to extract year, month and day from. Omitting this parameter or supplying a falsy value will select the current date. To prevent date selection, pass in NULL. |
| start_year | current year | The first year in the dropdown, either year number, or relative to current year (+/- N) |
| end_year | same as start_year | The last year in the dropdown, either year number, or relative to current year (+/- N) |
| display_days | TRUE | Whether to display days or not |
| display_months | TRUE | Whether to display months or not |
| display_years | TRUE | Whether to display years or not |
| month_names | | List of strings to display for months. array(1 =\> 'Jan', ..., 12 =\> 'Dec') |
| month_format | \%B | What format the month should be in (strftime) |
| day_format | \%02d | What format the day output should be in (sprintf) |
| day_value_format | \%d | What format the day value should be in (sprintf) |
| year_as_text | FALSE | Whether or not to display the year as text |
| reverse_years | FALSE | Display years in reverse order |
| field_array | | If a name is given, the select boxes will be drawn such that the results will be returned to PHP in the form of name\[Day\], name\[Year\], name\[Month\]. |
| day_size | | Adds size attribute to select tag if given |
| month_size | | Adds size attribute to select tag if given |
| year_size | | Adds size attribute to select tag if given |
| all_extra | | Adds extra attributes to all select/input tags if given |
| day_extra | | Adds extra attributes to select/input tags if given |
| month_extra | | Adds extra attributes to select/input tags if given |
| year_extra | | Adds extra attributes to select/input tags if given |
| all_id | | Adds id-attribute to all select/input tags if given |
| day_id | | Adds id-attribute to select/input tags if given |
| month_id | | Adds id-attribute to select/input tags if given |
| year_id | | Adds id-attribute to select/input tags if given |
| field_order | MDY | The order in which to display the fields |
| field_separator | \\n | String printed between different fields |
| month_value_format | \%m | strftime() format of the month values, default is %m for month numbers. |
| all_empty | | If supplied then the first element of any select-box has this value as it's label and "" as it's value. This is useful to make the select-boxes read "Please select" for example. |
| year_empty | | If supplied then the first element of the year's select-box has this value as it's label and "" as it's value. This is useful to make the select-box read "Please select a year" for example. Note that you can use values like "-MM-DD" as time-attribute to indicate an unselected year. |
| month_empty | | If supplied then the first element of the month's select-box has this value as it's label and "" as it's value. . Note that you can use values like "YYYY\--DD" as time-attribute to indicate an unselected month. |
| day_empty | | If supplied then the first element of the day's select-box has this value as it's label and "" as it's value. Note that you can use values like "YYYY-MM-" as time-attribute to indicate an unselected day. |
> **Note**
>
> There is an useful php function on the [date tips page](../../appendixes/tips.md)
> for converting `{html_select_date}` form values to a timestamp.
## Exaples
Template code
```smarty
{html_select_date}
```
This will output:
```html
January
February
March
..... snipped .....
October
November
December
01
02
03
..... snipped .....
11
12
13
14
15
..... snipped .....
29
30
31
2006
```
```smarty
{* start and end year can be relative to current year *}
{html_select_date prefix='StartDate' time=$time start_year='-5'
end_year='+1' display_days=false}
```
With 2000 as the current year the output:
```html
January
February
.... snipped ....
November
December
1995
.... snipped ....
1999
2000
2001
```
See also [`{html_select_time}`](language-function-html-select-time.md),
[`date_format`](../language-modifiers/language-modifier-date-format.md),
[`$smarty.now`](../language-variables/language-variables-smarty.md#smartynow-languagevariablessmartynow) and the [date tips
page](../../appendixes/tips.md#dates).