Question

When I use the system.datetime as my datamember it returns a strange format in my datagridview.

My Datamembers looks like this:

    [DataMember(Name = "TimeAdded")]
    public DateTime TimeAdded;

And my AddStudent looks like this:

    public void AddStudent(Student student)
    {
        student.StudentID = (++eCount).ToString();
        student.TimeAdded = DateTime.Now; // not important more so the method to get the correct format
        students.Add(student);
    }

The output I get is 2012-04-12T03:10:42.8138255+01:00 is there a way to fix this?

Answer 1

Assuming you are referring to the fact that your dates are set to default(DateTime), then you want yamen’s answer, if you don’t like the format the DateTime is showing, then add another property onto Student that uses a standard DateTime format string like so.

public class Student
{
   // existing date, don't expose this
   public DateTime TimeAdded;

   // expose this instead
   [DataMember(Name = "TimeAddedString")]
   public string TimeAddedString 
   {
      //show as "Monday, January 01, 0001 12:00 AM"
      get { return this.TimeAdded.ToString("f"); }
   }
}