Question

I have two DateTime objects, BirthDate and HireDate. They are correctly formatted as a string and when I pass them through to my data access layer, they need to be parsed into a DateTime object.

DateTime hD = DateTime.Parse(hire);            
DateTime bD = DateTime.Parse(birth);

//incase of a datestring being passed through
dateStringPassed = "7/2/1969";

But sometimes, the strings hire and birth are null or empty "", if the code is run like this, I get a FormatException error from Parsing a empty string. How can I manage empty parses and allow the DateTime, if empty or null, be accepted as DBNull.Value?

I still cannot manage incase the user does not pass through a DateTime string, then the parse crashes my code.

My parameter for birth date is as follows and checks the variable if null, then use DBNull.Value.

Answer 1

You need to use nullable date times – the shortcut syntax would be DateTime? (note the ? at the end).

DateTime? hD = null;
if(!string.IsNullOrWhitespace(hire )) // string.IsNullOrEmpty if on .NET pre 4.0
{
   hD = DateTime.Parse(hire);            
}

You can test for hD.HasValue and if it doesn’t use DbNull.Value instead.