Question

I am trying to convert all DateTime values in a DataTable to strings. Here is the method I use:

private static void ConvertDateTimesToStrings(DataTable dataTable) {     if (dataTable == null)     {         return;     }      for (int rowIndex = 0; rowIndex < dataTable.Rows.Count; rowIndex++ )     {         for (int i = 0; i < dataTable.Columns.Count; i++)         {             DateTime dateTime;             try             {                 dateTime = (DateTime)dataTable.Rows[rowIndex][i];             }             catch (InvalidCastException)             {                 continue;             }             dataTable.Rows[rowIndex][i] = dateTime.ToString('dd.MM.yyyy hh:mm:ss');         }     } } 

After this line works:

dataTable.Rows[rowIndex][i] = dateTime.ToString('dd.MM.yyyy hh:mm:ss'); 

I check the value of dataTable.Rows[rowIndex][i] and see it is still a DateTime, not a string. Why does this happen and how can I solve this?

Edit: I am trying to do this because I am fighting an api and unfortunately I do not have the choice of which component to use.

Answer 1

It may have determined that the column data type is date time and is reboxing the values to datetime when you save the value back in there.

Try this… Create a new column on the datatable as a TypeOf(String), and save the string value into that column. When all the values have been copied, drop the date time column.