ASP.NET date formatting issue

Question

I have a SQL Server database which has a column of date with value of 2001-12-23 . The insert statement makes sure that the input is correctly formatted using the following code:

var start_date_formatted = DateTime.ParseExact(start_date.Text, "dd-MM-yyyy", null);

Even though the input is formatted as dd-MM-yyyy it still appears in the database as 2001-12-23 .

The thing that I don't understand is the fact that whenever I query the data from the database, it returns the date correctly formatted dd-MM-yyyy even though it appears in the database as yyyy-MM-dd .

That is not a big deal since I got the formatting I need eventually.

The problem is that the time string is being added to my date generating the output of 23-12-2001 00:00:00 . I need date only but can't figure out why is it being added and why can't I change it using the following method:

DateTime.ParseExact(startdate, "dd-MM-YYYY", null); // string is not recognized as valid DateTime

or

.ToString("dd-MM-YYYY"); // no overload method ToString that takes 1 argument

Since I'm new to asp.net I would like to get to know how to handle date formats and if there is any general config setting which would require and set certain date format?

UPDATE

var dt = BookingAccess.ManageBookingsDataTable();
            string id = string.Empty;
            string name = string.Empty;
            string startdate = string.Empty;
            string enddate = string.Empty;
            string full_string = string.Empty;
            if (dt.Rows.Count > 0)
            {
                for (int i = 0; i < dt.Rows.Count; i++)
                {
                    id = dt.Rows[i]["id"].ToString();
                    var sdate = dt.Rows[i]["start_date"];
                    name = dt.Rows[i]["Pet name"].ToString();
                    startdate = dt.Rows[i]["start_date"].ToString("dd-MM-yyyy"); // error is thrown here
                    enddate = dt.Rows[i]["end_date"].ToString();
                    full_string = startdate + " to " + enddate + " (" + name + ")";
                    CurrentBookings.Items.Add(new ListItem(full_string, id));
                }
            }

This does not seem to format the date either:

startdate = string.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", dt.Rows[i]["start_date"].ToString());

Answer 1

In C# there is no Type Date, so all dates is variables of DateTime type. So when you get date from db it transfers into DateTime variable with time 00:00:00

To get string from this you can use ToString("dd-MM-yyyy") :

var dt = DateTime.Now;
string dateinstring = dt.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy")); //it contains "23-11-2012"

Update:

Your problem is that your datatable is not typed, so your startdate is object, not DateTime. You should cast it to DateTime:

startdate = ((DateTime)dt.Rows[i]["start_date"]).ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");

This will works if your dt.Rows[i]["start_date"] is not nullable, in other case you should check that it is not null before casting.

Answer 2

You shouldn't worry about the display format of a DateTime in SQL Server. In my SQL management studio they also appear as 2001-12-23, but in my Visual Studio as 23-12-2001.

You probably set the Column Data Type to DateTime . This adds a time of 00:00:00, if none specified. You can specify the Date type if you only want to store a date, although it doesn't really matter if you format the DateTime on your website.

--

Update:

Cast the value from the database to a DateTime, then format it:

DateTime date = Convert.ToDateTime(dt.Rows[i]["start_date"]); 
string startdate = date.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");