Asp.net-MVC now allows for implicit binding of DateTime objects. I have an action along the lines of
public ActionResult DoSomething(DateTime startDate)
{
...
}
This successfully converts a string from an ajax call into a DateTime. However, we use the date format dd/MM/yyyy; MVC is converting to MM/dd/yyyy. For example, submitting a call to the action with a string '09/02/2009' results in a DateTime of '02/09/2009 00:00:00', or September 2nd in our local settings.
I don't want to roll my own model binder for the sake of a date format. But it seems needless to have to change the action to accept a string and then use DateTime.Parse if MVC is capable of doing this for me.
Is there any way to alter the date format used in the default model binder for DateTime? Shouldn't the default model binder use your localisation settings anyway?
It is also worth noting that even without creating your own model binder multiple different formats may be parsable.
For instance in the US all the following strings are equivalent and automatically get bound to the same DateTime value:
I'd strongly suggest using yyyy-mm-dd because its a lot more portable. You really dont want to deal with handling multiple localized formats. If someone books a flight on 1st May instead of 5th January you're going to have big issues!
NB: I'm not clear exaclty if yyyy-mm-dd is universally parsed in all cultures so maybe someone who knows can add a comment.
I've been having the same issue with short date format binding to DateTime model properties. After looking at many different examples (not only concerning DateTime) I put together the follwing:
To keep with the way that routes etc are regiseterd in the Global ASAX file I also added a new sytatic class to the App_Start folder of my MVC4 project named CustomModelBinderConfig:
I then just call the static RegisterCustomModelBinders from my Global ASASX Application_Start like this:
An important note here is that if you write a DateTime value to a hiddenfield like this:
I did that and the actual value on the page was in the format "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt" instead of "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt" like I wanted. This caused my model validation to either fail or return the wrong date (obviously swapping the day and month values around).
After a lot of head scratching and failed attempts the solution was to set the culture info for every request by doing this in the Global.ASAX:
It won't work if you stick it in Application_Start or even Session_Start since that assigns it to the current thread for the session. As you well know, web applications are stateless so the thread that serviced your request previously is ot the same thread serviceing your current request hence your culture info has gone to the great GC in the digital sky.
Thanks go to: Ivan Zlatev - http://ivanz.com/2010/11/03/custom-model-binding-using-imodelbinder-in-asp-net-mvc-two-gotchas/
garik - https://stackoverflow.com/a/2468447/578208
Dmitry - https://stackoverflow.com/a/11903896/578208
I would globally set your cultures. ModelBinder pick that up!
Or you just change this for this page.
But globally in web.config I think is better
I've just found the answer to this with some more exhaustive googling:
Melvyn Harbour has a thorough explanation of why MVC works with dates the way it does, and how you can override this if necessary:
http://weblogs.asp.net/melvynharbour/archive/2008/11/21/mvc-modelbinder-and-localization.aspx
I set the below config on my MVC4 and it works like a charm