DateTime editor template not rendering date in correct format

Question

I have a page with a datetime input on it, along with the customary JQuery datepicker, and an editor template for "Date" which formats the date in the text box and the date that is passed into the view and adds the required clases etc.

When I call the page from the default action (which takes a nullable datetime for passing the date into), I get a populated date and it formats correctly (in this case dd/mm/yyyy). When I call the page with a datetime, it builds the date correctly in the action, but the page renders the date as "mm/dd/yyy hh:mm:ss", rather than the desired format. The url I'm calling the action with is <url>?reportDate=06%2F13%2F2012%2000%3A00%3A00, which is rendered from an html helper action link, passing in the model date as the parameter, and the action can translate this to the correct date. If I try to call the page with <url>?reportDate=13%2F06%2F2012 (the format I want to display the date as), the action takes it as a null parameter being passed, the page displays the date correctly, but a validation exception is thrown - The value '13/06/2012' is invalid.

I'm in the UK, I've got my globalization in the web.config set to en-GB, but for some reason it's validating against the US version of the date by the looks of it.

Model:

public class ReportModel
{
    [Required]
    DataType(DataType.Date)]
    public DateTime ReportDate { get; set; }
    public string Message { get; set; }

    //More code here
}

Template (in Shared\EditorTemplates\Date.spark and using SparkViewEngine):

<viewdata model="DateTime" />
${Html.TextBox("", string.Format("{0:d}", Model.ToShortDateString()), new { id = "", @class = "datepicker" })}

View:

<p>
    <label for="ProcessDate">
        Date
        <small>
            <span class="error">${Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.ReportDate)}</span>
        </small>
    </label>
    ${Html.EditorFor(m => m.ReportDate, "Date")}
</p>

Action:

public ActionResult StatementsReport(DateTime? reportDate)
{
    if (!reportDate.HasValue)
        reportDate = DateTime.Now;

    var report = new ReportModel { ReportDate = reportDate.Value.Date };
    return View("Statements/GenerateReport", report);
}

If I need to provide more detail, please let me know.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The default model binder uses InvariantCulture with GET requests and the thread culture for POST requests when parsing. This basically means that if you are passing your reportDate action parameter in a GET request (as a query string parameter) you must use InvariantCulture to format it. Ideally use:

some_url?reportDate=yyyy-MM-dd

If you are sending a POST request (a.k.a submitting the form containing the input field), then the date must be formatted according to your application culture because this is what the model binder will use.

Checkout the following blog post which illustrates this.