Question

I’m trying to do some validation testing in VB.NET.

 If Entity.WeekEndDate.ToString = String.Empty Then
            ErrorList.Add(New cValidationError("id", "Incorrect Week End Date"))

Where WeekEndDate is of type Date. When I originally build the object, how can I insert a value into WeekEndDate that will generate an empty string(ie. “”) when converted from a Date to a String?

Answer 1

It might be better to use MinValue to represent an invalid date:

If Entity.WeekEndDate = DateTime.MinValue Then 
     ErrorList.Add(New cValidationError("id", "Incorrect Week End Date"))

As a rule, you shouldn’t be converting dates to strings and then comparing them. Compare as the original datatype (in this case, DateTime).