Question

I have an Editor Template for my Date fields which sets the current date if the field is null.

@model Nullable<DateTime>

@{
    var date = Model as DateTime?; // local reference to a DateTime? 

    if (!date.HasValue                     // check if it is not null 
        || date.Equals(default(DateTime))) // check if it is not default 01/01/0001
    {
        date = DateTime.Now;
    }

    @Html.TextBox("", String.Format("{0:d}", date.Value.ToShortDateString()), new { @class = "date" })
 }

I would like to apply this template to only my Create Views.

When I edit a record the above code populates the current date for fields that I had intentionally left as null as the date was unknown.

Wondering if my code can be amended to accommodate this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

There are a couple ways you could do this.

First way is to pass in a flag through your ViewData, something like this:

@Html.EditorFor(m => m.SomeDate, new { nowIfNull = true })

Then update your template:

@model Nullable<DateTime>

@{
    var date = Model as DateTime?; // local reference to a DateTime? 

    if ((!date.HasValue                     // check if it is not null 
        || date.Equals(default(DateTime))) // check if it is not default 01/01/0001
        && ((bool?)ViewData["nowIfNull"] ?? false)) // check if it should set to now if null
    {
        date = DateTime.Now;
    }

    @Html.TextBox("", date == null ? String.Empty : String.Format("{0:d}", date.Value.ToShortDateString()), new { @class = "date" })
 }

Another way is to default this to DateTime.Now in your controller — or even better, a mapper — when you create a new model. This separates the concerns of setting the default where it belongs, in your controller/mapper instead of the view.