jQuery UI DatePicker: Disable Specified Days

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!