title: Required property but Nullable, Entity Framework through Code First
body: <p>How to make a property required (for field validation) but Nullable for the DB code migrations?</p>
  
  <p>I do have a DB table with a thousand entries. recently was required to add a required DateTime property. </p>
  
  <pre><code>    [Required]
      [Display(Name = "Birth", Order = 10)]
      public DateTime? Birth { get; set; } 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I set <code>[Required]</code> annotation, the Code first migration will add NOT NULL to the column declaration. However all current entries does not have "Birth" data. and it will be NULL.</p>
  
  <p>the <code>Birth</code> property should be required to the view field validatoin, but it could be nullable into the DB. Is that possible somehow?</p>
  
  <p>I already tried add "?" (nullable) to the property and "virtual" without success.</p>