Mvc 3 DateTime Property model Default value

Question

I have DateTime Property in my Model class ,

Then in view I am using :

 @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.BirthDay, new {@disabled="true" , @value="" })

In my View TextBox Displayed as [01/01/0001 00:00:00] , how to force it be Empty ?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3734829/datetime-field-and-html-textboxfor-helper-how-to-use-it-correctly dup — indiPy, Nov 20 '12 at 09:51

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 23 '12 at 09:58

The default value of a DateTime = 01/01/0001 00:00:00

This is because a DateTime is a struct and not an object. This also counts for some other C# varables like Int where the default value = 0

Other C# variables like String are nullable by default because they are an object.

To make these structs nullable you need to add a QuestionMark to the variable declaration like

public DateTime? BirthDay { get; set; }

Now your DateTime can contain null values. And the value of your textbox will contain nothing for default

Adding the ? to a struct is C# sugar for Nullable<T> where T is a struct.
So DateTime? can be rewritten as Nullable<DateTime>.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 20 '12 at 10:55

1

Can this work? Change in model:

public DateTime? BirthDay {get; set;}

instead of

public DateTime BirthDay {get; set;}

edited Nov 20 '12 at 10:55

middelpat

answered Nov 20 '12 at 10:32

nils

Try to explain why this works so this solution won't just work for this problem but he also will have the knowledge for the future – middelpat Nov 20 '12 at 10:54

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:56

0

this will do it.

@Html.TextBox("BirthDay", "", new {@disabled="true" })

It doesn't strongly type the TextBox so you can set any value you want, binding in the other direction will work as normal,

edited May 23 '17 at 11:56

Community

answered Nov 20 '12 at 10:54

Liam

3 Answers3