Convert and format datetime to String in C#

Question

I have birth dates stored as datetime in SQL Server 2008 like so:

2010-04-25 00:00:00.000

What is the best way, using C#, to convert and format this into a string with a YYYYMMDD format?

In the end, all I need is a string like:

20100425

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Are you able to get the data out of the database as a DateTime (.NET) object? If so, you can use the DateTime's instancename.ToString("yyyyMMdd")

If you haven't gotten to that stage yet, there's quite a few different ways to get the data out. It's a whole Google search in itself...

Answer 2

date.ToString("yyyyMMdd");

Should be what you need.

Answer 3

Use the .ToString() method on the date time object, and pass in the format you want.

Answer 4

You just format the date using a custom format string:

string formatted = theDate.ToString("yyyyMMdd");

Note that the date doens't have a format at all when it's stored as a datetime in the database. It's just a point in time, it doesn't have a specific text representation until it's specifically created from the date.

Answer 5

You need to get that value into a DateTime object and then you can use it's ToString() function like so:

.ToString("yyyyMMdd");