Error in date validation MVC - asp.net-mvc

Question

My model class property looks like this
public DateTime PurchaseDate { get; set; }
and inside view
#Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.PurchaseDate, new { #class = "form-control date-picker" })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PurchaseDate)
and I am giving a date like this in form
19/06/2015
But it gives validation message and not allows page to be submitted, message is like this
The field PurchaseDate must be a date.
if I give date in mm/dd/yyyy format it works. Can anyone point out what I am doing wrong here?

Answer 1

The client side error is occurring because by default jquery.validate tests the value using the MM/dd/yyyy format. You can override the $.validator.addMethod('date', function (value, element) function to test that the value is in the dd/MM/yyyy you expect. Note the following code is from my own jquery plugin associated with a #Html.DatePickerFor() helper method which renders a data-dateformat attribute in the output based on the servers culture, so it may be an overkill for your needs
Add the following scripts (not in document.ready, but after jquery.validate.unobtrusive)
Date.prototype.isValid = function () {
return !isNaN(this.getTime());
}
globalDate = function (value, formatString) {
// Initialise a new date
var date = new Date(0);
if (value == undefined) {
// Return todays date
return date;
}
// Get the components of the format
// The separator can be forward slash, hyphen, dot and/or space
var regex = new RegExp(/([dMy]+)([\s/.-]+)([dMy]+)([\s/.-]+)([dMy]+)/);
//var format = regex.exec(this.inputFormat);
var format = regex.exec(formatString);
// Get the components of the value
regex = new RegExp(/(\d+)([\s/.-]+)(\d+)([\s/.-]+)(\d+)/);
value = regex.exec(value);
// Check the value is valid
if (value === null || value[2] !== format[2] || value[4] !== format[4]) {
// Its not valid
date.setTime(Number.NaN);
return date;
}
// TODO: What if year entered as 2 digits?
var day = Number.NaN;
var month = Number.NaN;
var year = Number.NAN;
if (format[1].charAt(0) === 'd') {
// little-endian (day, month, year)
day = parseInt(value[1]);
month = parseInt(value[3]) - 1;
year = parseInt(value[5]);
} else if (format[1].charAt(0) === 'M') {
// middle-endian (month, day, year)
day = parseInt(value[3]);
month = parseInt(value[1]) - 1;
year = parseInt(value[5]);
} else {
// big endian (year, month, day)
day = parseInt(value[5]);
month = parseInt(value[3]) - 1;
year = parseInt(value[1]);
}
date.setFullYear(year);
date.setMonth(month);
date.setDate(day);
// Check its valid
if (date.getDate() !== day || date.getMonth() !== month || date.getFullYear() !== year) {
date.setTime(Number.NaN);
return date;
}
return date;
}
$.validator.addMethod('date', function (value, element) {
var format = "dd/MM/yyyy";
return this.optional(element) || globalDate(value, format).isValid();
}
If you only ever want to test for the format dd/MM/yyyy, then you could simplify the globalDate() function by just using
var date = new Date();
date.setHours(0, 0, 0, 0);
var components = value.split('/');
var day = components[0];
var month = components[1];
var year = components[2];
date.setFullYear(year);
....
Edit
Further to OP's comments regarding server side validation failing, the server culture needs to accept a date string in the format dd/MM/yyyy. In the web.config.cs file
<system.web>
<globalization culture="en-AU" uiCulture="en-AU"/> // adjust to your culture code
....

Answer 2

If you want to explicitly set the expected date format for your model property then you can do this using the DisplayAttribute
[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
public DateTime PurchaseDate { get; set; }
Otherwise, the current culture of the server would be used (which in your case happens to be MM/dd/yyyy).
It appears that in order for client-side validation to respect the DataFormatString we need to use EditorFor in place of TextBoxFor
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.PurchaseDate, new { #class = "form-control date-picker" })
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PurchaseDate)