Question

I have a MVC action that takes one of its parameters a DateTime and if I pass “17/07/2012” it throws an exception saying that the param is null but cannot have a null value but if I pass 01/07/2012 it is parsed as Jan 07 2012.

I’m passing the dates to the ajax call in DD/MM/YYYY format, should I rely on MM/DD/YYYY format despite the configured culture in web.config?

This is a simple method and there is just this one date parameter.

Answer 1

You got three safe options to send date parameter in Asp.NET-MVC:

• Send it as YYYY/MM/DD it’s the ISO standard for international dates.

• Use POST request instead of GET request.

• If you want to change the way the default Model Binder binds dates:

you can change the default model binder to use the user culture using IModelBinder

public class DateTimeBinder : IModelBinder
{
    public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        var value = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingContext.ModelName);
        var date = value.ConvertTo(typeof(DateTime), CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);

        return date;    
    }
}

And in the Global.Asax write:

ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(DateTime), new DateTimeBinder());
ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(DateTime?), new DateTimeBinder());

Read more at this excellent blog that describe why Mvc framework team implemented a default Culture to all users.