Is there a way to make a DateTime property stay constant, as you edit its object with an MVC?-CodePudding

I am not sure how to go about this. My ticket object, has a DateTime property called TicketCreationTime, which said property is defaulting to 1/1/0001 at 12 AM; every time it's edit entity function is called from the tickets controller.

How could I make it, so that the TicketCreationTime stays the same as changes are made to it's ticket object? That way, the creation time is always the time as when the ticket was made?

Ticket Object

  public class Ticket
{
 
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }
    public DateTime TicketCreationTime { get; set; } 
    public DateTime DueDate { get; set; }
    public DateTime TicketUpdatedTime { get; set; } 

    public Ticket()
    {
        
    }

}

TicketsController Create

      public async Task<IActionResult> Create([Bind("ID,Name,Description,TicketCreationTime,DueDate,TicketUpdatedTime,CurrentStatus,Importance")] Ticket ticket)
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            DateTime StartTime = DateTime.Now;

            ticket.TicketCreationTime = StartTime;
            ticket.TicketUpdatedTime = StartTime;
            _context.Add(ticket);
            await _context.SaveChangesAsync();
            return RedirectToAction(nameof(Index));
        }
        return View(ticket);
       
    }

TicketsController Edit

 public async Task<IActionResult> Edit(int id, [Bind("ID,Name,Description,TicketCreationTime,DueDate,TicketUpdatedTime,CurrentStatus,Importance")] Ticket ticket)
    {
        if (id != ticket.ID)
        {
            return NotFound();
        }

        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            
            try
            {
                ticket.TicketUpdatedTime = DateTime.Now;
                
                _context.Update(ticket);
                await _context.SaveChangesAsync();
            }
            catch (DbUpdateConcurrencyException)
            {
                if (!TicketExists(ticket.ID))
                {
                    return NotFound();
                }
                else
                {
                    throw;
                }
            }
            return RedirectToAction(nameof(Index));
        }
        return View(ticket);
    }

CodePudding user response：

Use DateTime? instead of DateTime for TicketCreationTime. And update it if it is null:

ticket.TicketUpdatedTime = DateTime.Now;

if (ticket.TicketCreationTime is null)
{
    ticket.TicketCreationTime = ticket.TicketUpdatedTime;
}

CodePudding user response：

You could change the property to use a private setter and initialize it in the constructor of your Ticket class:

public class Ticket
{
    // other properties ...
 
    public DateTime TicketCreationTime { get; private set; } 

    public Ticket()
    {
        if (TicketCreationTime == DateTime.MinValue)
            TicketCreationTime = DateTime.Now;
    }

}

And don't try to update it in the Create method. Changing to use a private setter means the value can only set from within the Ticket class, so other classes won't be able modify it's value, which sounds like the behaviour you want.