asp.net mvc - MVC4 DataType.Date EditorFor won't display date value in Chrome, fine in Internet Explorer

Question

I'm using the DataType.Date attribute on my model and an EditorFor in my view. This is working fine in Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9, but in Google Chrome it is showing a date picker and instead of displaying the value it just displays "Month/Day/Year" in faded gray text.

Why won't Google Chrome display the value?

Model:

[DataType(DataType.Date)]
public Nullable<System.DateTime> EstPurchaseDate { get; set; }

View:

<td class="fieldLabel">Est. Pur. Date</td>
<td class="field">@Html.EditorFor(m=>m.EstPurchaseDate)</td>

Answer 1

When you decorate a model property with [DataType(DataType.Date)] the default template in ASP.NET MVC 4 generates an input field of type="date":

<input class="text-box single-line" 
       data-val="true" 
       data-val-date="The field EstPurchaseDate must be a date."
       id="EstPurchaseDate" 
       name="EstPurchaseDate" 
       type="date" value="9/28/2012" />

Browsers that support HTML5 such Google Chrome render this input field with a date picker.

In order to correctly display the date, the value must be formatted as 2012-09-28. Quote from the specification:

value: A valid full-date as defined in [RFC 3339], with the additional qualification that the year component is four or more digits representing a number greater than 0.

You could enforce this format using the DisplayFormat attribute:

[DataType(DataType.Date)]
[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
public Nullable<System.DateTime> EstPurchaseDate { get; set; }