Question

My model has a object which has a date property…

    [Required(ErrorMessage="{0} is required")]
    [Display(Name="Donation date")]
    [DisplayFormat(ApplyFormatInEditMode = true, DataFormatString = "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}")]
    public DateTime DonationDate { get; set; }

The view has an editor for it….

  <div class="editor-label">
        @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Donation.DonationDate)
    </div>
    <div class="editor-field">
        @Html.TextBox("txtDate", Model.Donation.DonationDate.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy"), new { @class = "date"      })
        @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Donation.DonationDate)
    </div>

The controller just receives back the model… but when I do this in the controller and give it to another view…

ViewBag.Date = model.Donation.DonationDate;

Every time I just get back
1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM no matter what the date was set to. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Forgot to mention… I’m also using JQuery datepicker on the editor field:

    $('.date').attr("placeholder", "dd/mm/yy").datepicker({
        dateFormat: "dd/mm/yy",
        changeMonth: true,
        changeYear: true
    });

Answer 1

You can use TextBoxFor so that the view engine knows how to label the form field appropriately (so that the model binder will recognize it on postback):

@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Donation.DonationDate, new { @class = "date" })

Alternatively, you could name the textbox correctly manually. I’m not sure exactly what that would look like …

Update

Ok, I as curious so I checked. The naming convention for nested fields uses the dot notation. So you should be able to write this:

@Html.TextBox("Donation.DonationDate", Model.Donation.DonationDate.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy"), new { @class = "date" })

Update #2

To format the correctly, apply an attribute to the DonationDate property in your model:

[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", ApplyFormatInEditMode=true)]

For this to work, you also have to use @Html.EditorFor instead of TextBoxFor.