Using altFormat and altField in jquery UI datepicker range

Question

I am trying to get range of dates "from" and "to" to add it to my DB. I use altFormat and altField to capture the date in DB format (yy-mm-dd) while displaying normal date format in the UI using Datepicker jquery UI component.

My question is: How do I use this in the Datepicker UI range. Where can I specify the altField for my from and to datepickers?

http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/#date-range

My Code:

var dates = $( "#hotel_display_checkin_date, #hotel_display_checkout_date" ).datepicker({
        defaultDate: "+1w",
        changeMonth: true,
        numberOfMonths: 1,
        altFormat: "yy-mm-dd",
        altField: "#hotel_checkin_date",
        onSelect: function( selectedDate ) {
            var option1 = this.id == "hotel_display_checkin_date" ? "minDate" : "maxDate",

                instance = $( this ).data( "datepicker" ),
                date = $.datepicker.parseDate(
                    instance.settings.dateFormat ||
                    $.datepicker._defaults.dateFormat,
                    selectedDate, instance.settings ),
                    options = {option1: date}
            dates.not( this ).datepicker( "option", options );
        }
        });

I tried adding the altField option to options = {option1: date}, but that does not work

Solution

Your main problem is that you're trying to use the same altField for both the check-in and check-out dates:

altField: '#hotel_checkin_date'

If you bind them separately:

var opts = {
    defaultDate: "+1w",
    changeMonth: true,
    numberOfMonths: 1,
    altFormat: "yy-mm-dd"
    onSelect: function(selectedDate) { ... }
};

$('#hotel_display_checkin_date').datepicker(
    $.extend({
        altField: '#hotel_checkin_date'
    }, opts)
);
$('#hotel_display_checkout_date').datepicker(
    $.extend({
        altField: '#hotel_checkout_date'
    }, opts)
);​

so that you can specify separate altFields then things should work better.

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/bJ8bh/1/