Question

I’m using the stock function to display a date range in an MVC 4 Razor view. The start/end dates are part of a filter in my model class. I want the start/end dates to be optional.

When I submit the form without the start/end filled in it triggers a “Required Field” validation check displaying these lovely messages:

• The Installed Date field is required.
• The InstalledDateEnd field is required.

Yet the form does submit and my filter runs and returns results.

    <script>
    $(function () {
        $("#InstalledDateStart").datepicker({
            defaultDate: "+1w",
            changeMonth: true,
            numberOfMonths: 3,
            onSelect: function (selectedDate) {
                $("#InstalledDateEnd").datepicker("option", "minDate", selectedDate);
            }
        });
        $("#InstalledDateEnd").datepicker({
            defaultDate: "+1w",
            changeMonth: true,
            numberOfMonths: 3,
            onSelect: function (selectedDate) {
                $("#InstalledDateStart").datepicker("option", "maxDate", selectedDate);
            }
        });
    });
</script>

I tried telling the Model that the fields were not required, didn’t help:

        [Display(Name = "Installed Date")]
    [Required(AllowEmptyStrings = true)]        
    public DateTime InstalledDateStart { get; set; }
    [Required(AllowEmptyStrings = true)]
    public DateTime InstalledDateEnd { get; set; }

And this is the markup in the view:

@using (Html.BeginForm("Filter", "Search"))
{

    <div class="divSearchBlock">
        <br style="clear:left;" />
        <div>
            <b>@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.ConstraintModel.InstalledDateStart)</b>                
            @Html.TextBox("InstalledDateStart", null, new { @class = "divCellContent" })                
            <b>-</b>                
            @Html.TextBox("InstalledDateEnd", null, new { @class = "divCellContent" })                
        </div>

        <input type="submit" value="Submit"/> 
    </div>
}

What in the world is causing the fields to be required?

Answer 1

DateTimes are not strings. So AllowEmptyString=true makes no sense. If you want your DateTimes to be nullable declare your model as:

[Display(Name = "Installed Date")]
public DateTime? InstalledDateStart { get; set; }
public DateTime? InstalledDateEnd { get; set; }

You need the ? is important because without this the DateTime will end up as DateTime.MinValue