any way to detect a TimeStamp column in a DataTable from SQL Server (fillSchema???)

Question

When updating a datatable from a "select * from sometable", I am iterating the columns in the datatable to dynamically create an update or insert statement, based on datatable.rowstate and DataTable.PrimaryKey.

However, I can't seem to find any property that indicates whether a column is a TimeStamp in SQL Server and must therefore be ignored in the update statement!!!

Answer 1

I would say that you would need to know the row types ahead of time. Unless you wrote an SQL script that did a describe on the table you are copying from and looked for a timestamp format.

Answer 2

Try using the GetSchemaTable method of the SqlDataReader class. It will return metadata for each column. The specific properties you'll be interested in are DataTypeName and isRowVersion.

string sql = "SELECT * FROM SomeTable";
using ( SqlConnection cn = new SqlConnection ())
{
   cn.ConnectionString = "Your Connection String";
   cn.Open ();
   using ( SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand ( sql, cn ) )
   {
      SqlDataReader dataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader ( CommandBehavior.KeyInfo );
      dataReader.Read ();

      DataTable dt = dataReader.GetSchemaTable ();
      foreach ( DataRow r in dt.Rows )
      {
        Console.WriteLine ( "Column name: {0}\t Data Type: {1}\t IsRowVersion:{2}", r["ColumnName"].ToString (), r["DataTypeName"].ToString (), r["isRowVersion"].ToString() );
      }

    }
 }