Format datetime in asp.net mvc 4

Question

Ahhhh, now it is clear. You seem to have problems binding back the value. Not with displaying it on the view. Indeed, that's the fault of the default model binder. You could write and use a custom one that will take into consideration the [DisplayFormat] attribute on your model. I have illustrated such a custom model binder here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7836093/29407

---

Apparently some problems still persist. Here's my full setup working perfectly fine on both ASP.NET MVC 3 & 4 RC.

Model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    [DisplayName("date of birth")]
    [DataType(DataType.Date)]
    [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
    public DateTime? Birth { get; set; }
}

Controller:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View(new MyViewModel
        {
            Birth = DateTime.Now
        });
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Index(MyViewModel model)
    {
        return View(model);
    }
}

View:

@model MyViewModel

@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
    @Html.LabelFor(x => x.Birth)
    @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Birth)
    @Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Birth)
    <button type="submit">OK</button>
}

Registration of the custom model binder in Application_Start:

ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(DateTime?), new MyDateTimeModelBinder());

And the custom model binder itself:

public class MyDateTimeModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
    public override object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        var displayFormat = bindingContext.ModelMetadata.DisplayFormatString;
        var value = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingContext.ModelName);

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(displayFormat) && value != null)
        {
            DateTime date;
            displayFormat = displayFormat.Replace("{0:", string.Empty).Replace("}", string.Empty);
            // use the format specified in the DisplayFormat attribute to parse the date
            if (DateTime.TryParseExact(value.AttemptedValue, displayFormat, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out date))
            {
                return date;
            }
            else
            {
                bindingContext.ModelState.AddModelError(
                    bindingContext.ModelName,
                    string.Format("{0} is an invalid date format", value.AttemptedValue)
                );
            }
        }

        return base.BindModel(controllerContext, bindingContext);
    }
}

Now, no matter what culture you have setup in your web.config (<globalization> element) or the current thread culture, the custom model binder will use the DisplayFormat attribute's date format when parsing nullable dates.

Client validation issues can occur because of MVC bug (even in MVC 5) in jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js which does not accept date/datetime format in any way. Unfortunately you have to solve it manually.

My finally working solution:

$(function () {
    $.validator.methods.date = function (value, element) {
        return this.optional(element) || moment(value, "DD.MM.YYYY", true).isValid();
    }
});

You have to include before:

@Scripts.Render("~/Scripts/jquery-3.1.1.js")
@Scripts.Render("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")
@Scripts.Render("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")
@Scripts.Render("~/Scripts/moment.js")

You can install moment.js using:

Install-Package Moment.js