Asp.Net Inline Scripting

Question

I have a DateTime object that i need to print in a Custom Gridlike Control. The type of the data i want to print is a Date in the format dd-mm-yyyy. This value can be either filled or blank. If its filled it will be parsed into a DateTime and then printed as the default ToString.

For Each row, in can use

<CellTemplate>
    <asp:Literal ID="Literal2" runat="server" Text="<%# Container.Value %>"></asp:Literal>                               
</CellTemplate>

But this prints the default long version of the date. Id like the format from ToShortDateString().

So i tried modifying to:

<CellTemplate>
    <asp:Literal ID="Literal2" runat="server" Text="<%# Convert.ToDateTime(Container.Value).ToShortTimeString()%>"></asp:Literal>                               
</CellTemplate>

This works as intended.

Now i have the problem of empty dates.

Convert.ToDateTime()

On a empty string, will print the default DateTime.

Is there a way that i can fasion an If-Statement in my aspx code, to only perform Convert.ToDateTime if its not an empty string?

Answer 1

Container.Value.Length > 0 ? Convert.ToDateTime(Container.Value).ToShortTimeString() : ""

You should also be able to pass Container.Value to any method in scope that you've defined.

Answer 2

You can have a protected method in your code behind which does the checking for you

protected static string ConvertDate(object date) {
    if (date == null)
       return string.Empty;
    return Convert.ToDateTime(date).ToShortTimeString();
}