Issue with DateTime fields being Null

[Chad Johnson]

Greetings,

I'm currently in the process of creating a grid to display comments on a product.  There is some data migration that has forced two DateTime fields to be required Null and the grid seems to be throwing fits about it.  I get the following error when it happens:

The model item passed into the dictionary is null, but this dictionary requires a non-null model item of type 'System.DateTime'.

I have been researching the topic and had little success on solving the problem.  Here is a sample of my code thus far.

View

@(Html.Telerik().Grid<ProductModel.ProductCommentsModel>()

                        .Name("productcomments-grid")

                        .DataKeys(keys =>

                        {

                            keys.Add(x => x.Id);

                        })

                        .DataBinding(dataBinding =>

                        {

                            dataBinding.Ajax()

                                .Select("ProductCommentsList", "Product", new { productId = Model.Id })

                                .Update("ProductCommentUpdate", "Product")

                                .Delete("ProductCommentDelete", "Product");

                        })

                        .Columns(columns =>

                        {

                            columns.Bound(x => x.Id)

                                .Hidden(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.ProductId)

                                .Hidden(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.CustomerId)

                                .Hidden(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.CustomerName)

                                .Width(200)

                                .ReadOnly(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.CreatedDate)

                                .Width(100)

                                .ReadOnly(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.LastModifiedDate)

                                .Width(100)

                                .ReadOnly(true);

                            columns.Bound(x => x.Comment);

                            columns.Command(commands =>

                            {

                                commands.Edit().ButtonType(GridButtonType.Text);

                                commands.Delete().ButtonType(GridButtonType.Text);

                            });

                        })

                        .Editable(edit => edit.Mode(GridEditMode.PopUp))

                        .EnableCustomBinding(true))

Model

public partial class ProductCommentsModel : BaseNopEntityModel

        {

            public int ProductId { get; set; }

  

            public int CustomerId { get; set; }

  

            public string CustomerName { get; set; }

  

            [Required(AllowEmptyStrings=true)]

            [DisplayFormat(NullDisplayText = "", DataFormatString = "0:MM/dd/yyyy")]

            public DateTime? CreatedDate { get; set; }

  

            [Required(AllowEmptyStrings = true)]

            [DisplayFormat(NullDisplayText = "", DataFormatString = "0:MM/dd/yyyy")]

            public DateTime? LastModifiedDate { get; set; }

  

            public DateTime? SentForRepair { get; set; }

  

            public string Comment { get; set; }

        }

Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

Kindest Regards,
Chad Johnson

[Simon]

Same problem here, any luck fixing it?

[Chad Johnson]

I ended up loading the two datetime fields into strings instead.  It was my only course of action since I have not heard anything from Kendo or found any other sources that had it fixed.

[Simon]

Hey Chad,

Just found the problem, In you solution go to Views-->Shared and Create a new folder called EditorTemplates if it is not already there

Then Create these two Razor Views (or the web form equivalent as partial .ascx views)

Date.cshtml

@model DateTime?
 
@(Html.Kendo().DatePickerFor(m => m))

DateTime.cshtml

@model DateTime?
 
@(Html.Kendo().DateTimePickerFor(m => m))

If you already have these files make sure the Model is of type DateTime? and not DateTime

Worked for me, more information on editor templates can be found here

http://docs.kendoui.com/getting-started/using-kendo-with/aspnet-mvc/helpers/grid/editor-templates


Hope this helps,

Si

[Chad Johnson]

Thanks.  I had seen this before but it was easier in the end for me just to convert them to strings.  I spoke with a person who has a firm understanding of MVC3 and 4, who said probably using strings would be the better course for the moment.