How to get the current date in C# and how do I pass this date to SQL Server

I am writing a ASP.NET C# web application. I will need to store the date in one field in one of my tables. It appears that I need to use the datetime data type for the date in SQL Server 2005.

So I have a question

1.) How do I get today's date in C# and how should this be passed to SQL server?

you can get the current date directly in SQL using getdate()|||Doing it in C# will return you the client system date. Getting the current date in SQL will ensure all datetime recorded in your application are in sync. If you are using the date for some sort of comparison determine the sequence of event, using the date from the client might pose some timing issue. Unless what you want is really the client's local time, you should use the Server time.|||

brgdotnet:

I am writing a ASP.NET C# web application. I will need to store the date in one field in one of my tables. It appears that I need to use the datetime data type for the date in SQL Server 2005.

So I have a question

1.) How do I get today's date in C# and how should this be passed to SQL server?

to get current date in c# use DateTime.Now.ToString()......... there is also some different methods under Now... use what is appropriate for u .

if u r using a procedure it is easier.... say proc. name saveCurrentDate

String s=DateTime.Now.ToString();

String queryString="saveCurrentDate '"+s+"'"; //// or String queryString="insert int myTable(mydate) values ('"+s+"')";

hope it will hellped u

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Actually I am processing some records from a comma delimited .txt file. Each item seperated by a comma, will map to a field in a SQL Server database table.

The date is in the format: 20070423, that is YYMMDD

So I need to take the date value and then write it into SQL server. So this brings us to another question. Do I need to change this date format to comply with that of SQL server? If so what format does it need to be in? I need some specifics so if you could even produce a code sample for C#, that would be great.

|||You can pass in the date in format YYYYMMDD as a string. SQL Server will implicitly convert it to string. As long as you are using Universal format YYYYMMDD, it is fine. Other format like MMDDYYYY or DDMMYYYY will be depending on the language setting that you used. So stick to YYYYMMDD and you will not go wrong.|||

I am confused about one thing though? I am reading from a text file where the format is in YYMMDD. Should I store this in SQL server as a data type of datetime or smalldatetime?

If so, I definitely have a date that, I can read from the text file, but I don't have a time? What do you think? If I did use datetime, would it just append the current time to the date I entered?

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you should always use proper data type for the data. In this case, you should use datetime or smalldatetime to store the date.

"I can read from the text file, but I don't have a time?"
You can still use datetime data type. Just set the time to 00:00:00. For your case, as your date string is in YYYYMMDD format without time, when you insert into table, the time will be stored as 00:00:00