Entering dates in bound fields

14 Mar 2006 4:19 PM

Dave

I'm working with SQL Server 2005 and VB.Net. I only want to store the date
(not the time) in the DateTime field.

I have a text field that is bound to a DateTime field in SQL. When I run the
program, the field initially comes up blank for new records. I enter a date
(like "03/14/06") and save the record.

When I retrieve the record and display it again, the field shows "03/14/06
12:00:00 AM". Now, that's annoying (and I would like to not display the time)
but I could live with it, if I had to.

The problem is, if I leave the entry like that and save the record, I get an
error message about my date field being too long for the field size.
What?!?!?!? I let the database populate the field, I didn't change it, and
now it says it's not good to put back in the database?

How do I save a DateTime field properly into SQL Server 2005? That's the
most important question.

The secondary question is, how do I get a bound field to only show the Date
portion of the database data?

14 Mar 2006 4:35 PM

Cor Ligthert [MVP]

Dave,

What you ask about the database is impossible. The SQL server has two
DateTime fields. One is the DateTime and the other the SmallDateTime. They
both exist from different calculated ticks. The fist start at 1-1-1853 (when
the British Empire started the Gregorian Calendar) and the other at 1900.

To use from those date the parts, you can seperate parts using he datetime
methods. By instance only the date portion of today is Now.Date

To use in a control the date as a string, you can use the IFormatProvider,
see for that this page.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemglobalizationdatetimeformatinfoclasstopic.asp

That can be by instance by using the binding events or by using column
styles.

I hope this helps,

Cor