How do I enforce proper globalization behavior for view models containing date properties in MVC3 - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I am attempting to pass a complex view model into a controller action. The object passed is of type Goal and contains among other things a datetime property (Goal.moddate). In my case the string representation of the date is following es-MX. Therefore February 29th, 2012 is represented as "29/02/2012" (I have the same issue with other dates).
The controller action is also annotated with an [CultureAwareAction] attribute - this one sets the culture info based on user preferences. In this case (updated to make the solution clearer)
public class CultureAwareActionAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("es-MX");
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("es-MX");
}
}
My preferred way to handle the action would be the following:
[HttpPost]
[CultureAwareAction]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Edit(Goal goal)
{
try
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
{
...update logic ...
}
}
}
catch (DataException)
{
... error handling ....
}
return View();
}
Using this approach ModelState.IsValid returns false due to the date string not being parsed. Changing the controller action to the following I encounter no errors:
[HttpPost]
[CultureAwareAction]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection formcollection)
{
try
{
Goal goal = unitOfWork.GoalRepository.GetByID(id);
if (TryUpdateModel(goal,formcollection))
{
{
... update logic ....
}
}
}
catch (DataException)
{
... error handling ...
}
return View();
}
My goal is to enforce proper globalization behavior on the first case as there are significant advantages going with that approach. It seems like this should work unless model binding happens before setting the user preferred culture using the [CultureAwareAction] attribute.

Answer 1

The model binder uses the CurrentCulture, not the CurrentUICulture when parsing dates. Also you haven't shown the code of this CultureAwareAction but chances are that it executes after the model binding so you are setting the culture too late.
If you want to ensure that it executes before model binding you could implement the IAuthorizationFilter interface:
public class CultureAwareActionAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter
{
public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext)
{
// That's for displaying in the UI, the model binder doesn't use it
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("es-MX");
// That's the important one for the model binder
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("es-MX");
}
}