mvc view date display format

Question

I have my date data annotation as

[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}")]
public DateTime CreatedOn { get; set; }

In my view:

 @Html.DisplayFor(item=> item.CreatedOn)

But my date appears as just: 11 12 2017 in my view, insteaed of 11/12/2017. What ate my /'s? Anything I forgot to include?

How about to go for `ToString()` Method instead? `@CreatedOn.ToString(dd/MM/yyyy)` — Masoud Andalibi, Dec 11 '17 at 07:55
The code you have shown will generate `11/12/2017`. If its not working for you, then yo have other code you have not show us causing the issue — , Dec 11 '17 at 09:28
@StephenMuecke I've shown how my model looks like and how I render in it my view. What other code may that be? — rethabile, Dec 11 '17 at 09:35
Check you do not have any `DisplayTemplate` for DateTime as noted by @EvanHuang. — , Dec 11 '17 at 09:38

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 11 '17 at 09:38

2

In the format-string, wrap the / in single quotes, so your model should look something like this:

[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:dd'/'MM'/'yyyy}")]
public DateTime CreatedOn { get; set; }

When rendered on the page, it uses the desired format.

The Documentation on DataFormatString has a remark about formatting of dates, but doesn't mention anything about this issue of formatting forward-slashes. Their proposed solution about setting HtmlEncode = true didn't work for me. I found the solution in the alternative suggestion on the answer for this similar question.

answered Dec 11 '17 at 09:38

Lars Kristensen

1,410
19
29

@StephenMuecke, That's a bit of a dramatic statement :-) I made a simple sample MVC application with the code OP posted, and verified that I could reproduce the problem. This solved the issue. There must be some settings causing the different behaviour of DisplayFormat / DataFormatString. I certainly don't have any other `DisplayTemplate` set up in my blank MVC project. – Lars Kristensen Dec 11 '17 at 09:49

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '17 at 09:46

It seems everything boils down to Culture info. As it currently stands it doesn't seem like we can specify CultureInfo in DisplayFormat, so i ended up defining a reusable helper method:

public static string FormatDate(this IHtmlHelper helper, DateTime date)
{
  var formattedDate = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", date);
  return formattedDateWithTime;
}

and in my view:

@Html.FormatDate(Model.CreatedOn)

mvc view date display format

2 Answers2