Question

I use EntityFramework CodeFirst MVC3. In my model I defined a nullable property like this:

public class PostFullViewModel
{
    public int PostID { get; set; }
    ...
    public DateTime? PublishDate { get; set; }
    ...
}

Here is my Create action controller:

public ActionResult Create()
    {
        PostCreateViewModel viewModel = new PostCreateViewModel
        {
            PostToCreate = new PostFullViewModel(),
            Authors = m_AccountBusiness.GetAllUsers().Select(x => new SelectListItem { Text = x.UserName, Value = x.UserID.ToString() })
        };

        return View(viewModel);
    }

In my create view:

@model PostCreateViewModel

@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.PostToCreate.PublishDate)
    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.PostToCreate.PublishDate)
    ...
}

I got an error on the EditorFor line:

The model item passed into the dictionary is null, but this dictionary requires a non-null model item of type 'System.DateTime'.

How can I proceed to have my creation view showing the PublishDate empty?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I guess you defined a custom editor template for the DateTime type (~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates/DateTime.cshtml or ~/Views/XXX/EditorTemplates/DateTime.cshtml where XXX is your current controller name) which is strongly typed to DateTime instead of DateTime? like this:

@model DateTime
...

So you could change its type to DateTime?.