Question

I have a asp:BoundColumn with DateTime? data (i’ll call it column X) in the asp:GridView. I loop through all the rows in the grid, and cast the .Text property to column X to DateTime (i need this to do some checking and change the cell background color if needed).

I have 2 options:

1. wrap the cast in try/catch … handle FormatException (in case column X gets rendered with some junk in it) … and work only with valid DateTime values.

2. check the column X to make sure it’s in the correct format (how?) before casing, and only cast if format is ok.

Which approach should i take, and why?

Thank you.

p.s. 1 up-vote for all explanations, accepted answer for TryParse

Edit2: even though i used TryParse, I’ve unchecked the accepted answer to keep the discussion going.

My ‘good data’/’bad data’ ratio is about 2/1 – this means lots of bad input

I’ll re-accept the answer in a couple of days, if nothing else comes up.

Answer 1

You could do the 2nd option. DateTime.TryParse can help.