[c#] Date vs DateTime

I am working on a program that requires the date of an event to get returned.

I am looking for a Date, not a DateTime.

Is there a datatype that returns just the date?

Create a wrapper class. Something like this:

public class Date:IEquatable<Date>,IEquatable<DateTime>
    {
        public Date(DateTime date)
        {
            value = date.Date;
        }

        public bool Equals(Date other)
        {
            return other != null && value.Equals(other.value);
        }

        public bool Equals(DateTime other)
        {
            return value.Equals(other);
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return value.ToString();
        }
        public static implicit operator DateTime(Date date)
        {
            return date.value;
        }
        public static explicit operator Date(DateTime dateTime)
        {
            return new Date(dateTime);
        }

        private DateTime value;
    }

And expose whatever of value you want.

The Date type is just an alias of the DateTime type used by VB.NET (like int becomes Integer). Both of these types have a Date property that returns you the object with the time part set to 00:00:00.

You can return DateTime where the time portion is 00:00:00 and just ignore it. The dates are handled as timestamp integers so it makes sense to combine the date with the time as that is present in the integer anyway.

DateTime has a Date property that you can use to isolate the date part. The ToString method also does a good job of only displaying the Date part when the time part is empty.

Unfortunately, not in the .Net BCL. Dates are usually represented as a DateTime object with the time set to midnight.

As you can guess, this means that you have all the attendant timezone issues around it, even though for a Date object you'd want absolutely no timezone handling.

I created a simple Date struct for times when you need a simple date without worrying about time portion, timezones, local vs. utc, etc.

Date today = Date.Today;
Date yesterday = Date.Today.AddDays(-1);
Date independenceDay = Date.Parse("2013-07-04");

independenceDay.ToLongString();    // "Thursday, July 4, 2013"
independenceDay.ToShortString();   // "7/4/2013"
independenceDay.ToString();        // "7/4/2013"
independenceDay.ToString("s");     // "2013-07-04"
int july = independenceDay.Month;  // 7

https://github.com/claycephus/csharp-date

You could try one of the following:

DateTime.Now.ToLongDateString();
DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();

But there is no "Date" type in the BCL.

The DateTime object has a Property which returns only the date portion of the value.

    public static void Main()
{
    System.DateTime _Now = DateAndTime.Now;
    Console.WriteLine("The Date and Time is " + _Now);
    //will return the date and time
    Console.WriteLine("The Date Only is " + _Now.Date);
    //will return only the date
    Console.Write("Press any key to continue . . . ");
    Console.ReadKey(true);
}

There is no Date DataType.

However you can use DateTime.Date to get just the Date.

E.G.

DateTime date = DateTime.Now.Date;

public class AsOfdates
{
    public string DisplayDate { get; set; }
    private DateTime TheDate;
    public DateTime DateValue 
    {
        get 
        { 
            return TheDate.Date; 
        } 

        set 
        { 
            TheDate = value; 
        } 
    }    
}

For this, you need to use the date, but ignore the time value.

Ordinarily a date would be a DateTime with time of 00:00:00

The DateTime type has a .Date property which returns the DateTime with the time value set as above.