MVC model validation for date

Question

Is there any default validation for MVC 5 where I can set min and max value of date?

In my model i want date validation

    public class MyClass
    {               
        [Required(ErrorMessage="Start date and time cannot be empty")]
        //validate:Must be greater than current date
        [DataType(DataType.DateTime)]
        public DateTime StartDateTime { get; set; }

        [Required(ErrorMessage="End date and time cannot be empty")]
        //validate:must be greater than StartDate
        [DataType(DataType.DateTime)]
        public DateTime EndDateTime { get; set; }            
    }

Ps: According to this Asp.Net Website, there is a problem in using the Range validator for DateTime, and it is not recommended.

Note: jQuery validation does not work with the Range attribute and DateTime. For example, the following code will always display a client side validation error, even when the date is in the specified range:

[Range(typeof(DateTime), "1/1/1966", "1/1/2020")]

You will need to disable jQuery date validation to use the Range attribute with DateTime. It's generally not a good practice to compile hard dates in your models, so using the Range attribute and DateTime is discouraged.

I also, know that there are Nuget packages like Fluent Validation and Foolproof that does the trick for validating and checking if one date is greater than other, but I wanted to know if by default there is something to check the date's min and max value.

From what I saw in Whats new in MVC 5.1, There is support for MaxLength and MinLength validation.

Answer 1

There is no need to disable jQuery date validation (and that is likely to cause other issues). You just need to override the range method of the $.validator.

By default, it works with numeric values (and then falls back to a string comparison), so you can add the following script (after jquery.validate.js and jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js, but not wrapped in $(document).ready

$.validator.methods.range = function(value, element, param) {
    if ($(element).attr('data-val-date')) {
        var min = $(element).attr('data-val-range-min');
        var max = $(element).attr('data-val-range-max');
        var date = new Date(value).getTime();
        var minDate = new Date(min).getTime();
        var maxDate = new Date(max).getTime();
        return this.optional(element) || (date >= minDate && date <= maxDate);
    }
    // use the default method
    return this.optional( element ) || ( value >= param[ 0 ] && value <= param[ 1 ] );
};

Then you can use the RangeAttribute on your property

[Range(typeof(DateTime), "1/1/1966", "1/1/2020")]
public DateTime Date { get; set; }