Clearing a date field with code - You must enter a value between

Clearing a date field with code - You must enter a value between 01/01/1753 and 31/12/9999

Dave Mills

Vote:

When I try and set a DateTime field to DateTime.MinValue and save in code it gives me this error: You must enter a value between 01/01/1753 and 31/12/9999.

//Get the content reference of the page to update.
                ContentReference contentReference = new ContentReference(model.PropertyID);
                //Get the writeable version of the content reference.
                HeritagePropertyLandingPage propertyPage = _contentRepository.Get(contentReference).CreateWritableClone() as HeritagePropertyLandingPage;
                //Make the changes.
                propertyPage.EmergencyText.StartDateTime = DateTime.MinValue;

                //Save.
                _contentRepository.Save(propertyPage, EPiServer.DataAccess.SaveAction.Publish);

Works fine if I set it to a real date value, but I have the need to be able to clear this field out.

If I clear out the date field via the cms editor it allows me to do this. When I then retrieve the value in code it is a DateTime.MinValue equivalent.

Any ideas? I guess I could change the SaveAction to not validate, but then I don't see why Episerver itself via the editor lets me save a blank date, but I can't via code.

#189979

Mar 28, 2018 16:09

Johan Björnfot

Vote:

An option is to have your property declared as a nullable DateTime (DateTime?) instead, then you can assign the value null to it to clear it.

#190005

Mar 29, 2018 8:25

Erik Norberg

Vote:

DateTime.MinValue is 00:00:00.0000000 UTC, January 1, 0001 which is fine to use in C#.

However SQL server doesn't support dates earlier than January 1, 1753, therefore they can't be saved.

As Johan said using DateTime? is the recommended way to handle it.

#190029

Mar 29, 2018 14:03

Dave Mills

Vote:

Thanks for the replies. I just find it strange via the editor you can enter a blank date and it saves it ok. So they must have logic there that sets a DateTime.MinValue to a null sql date. That's how I've done this kind of thing before.

I'm not sure I can risk changing the field strcuture now we have effectively live data. If I change it do nullable I'm not sure the impact on all the existing records.

#190031

Mar 29, 2018 14:10

Erik Norberg

Vote:

What does your definition of HeritagePropertyLandingPage look like?

#190033

Mar 29, 2018 14:26

Dave Mills

Vote:

It has this property:

[Display(
            Name = "Emergency",
            GroupName = ContentGroupNames.Alerts,
            Order = 10)]
        public virtual EmergencyTextBlock EmergencyText { get; set; }

Which itself contains:

public class EmergencyTextBlock : BlockData
    {
        [Display(
           Name = "Emergency text",
           GroupName = ContentGroupNames.Content)]
        [UIHint(UIHint.Textarea)]
        public virtual string EmergencyText { get; set; }

        [Display(
          Name = "Display from",
          GroupName = ContentGroupNames.Content)]
        public virtual DateTime StartDateTime { get; set; }

        [Display(
          Name = "Display to",
          GroupName = ContentGroupNames.Content)]
        public virtual DateTime EndDateTime { get; set; }
    }

#190039

Mar 29, 2018 15:07

Erik Norberg

Vote:

A shot in the dark but can you test these two approaches:

propertyPage["StartDateTime"]=null;
propertyPage.EmergencyText["StartDateTime"]=null;

For future reference i would like to recommend utilizing the built-in support for scheduled publish and expiration, if a block has expired there is no need to load it from the database before checking dates.

#190042

Mar 29, 2018 15:31

Dave Mills

Vote:

We do use pubish and expiration for most dates, this is a special situation though. Your answer worked perfect. Cheers.

#190128

Apr 03, 2018 10:50