Riddle...

bertus · November 4th, 2010, 04:20 AM

Hey everybody,

I'm building a database table bassed on the review table from the book.

I also have a 'createDate' and an 'UpdateDate' both of type 'datetime', which defaults to getdate().
BUT: when trying at runtime to add records, I get an error which states that I'm trying to put data of format 'datetime2' into a 'datetime' variable.

Now I changed the datatype to datetime2 for both variables and it seems to work, but the default values in the database are now set to 1-1-0001, how is this possible?getdate() should set the variable 'datetime' to the current date/time?

Bertus

Imar · November 4th, 2010, 04:24 AM

Hi Bertus,

How are you getting data from your application to the database? "Riddle" doesn't really describe the underlying situation very well.... ;-)

Imar

bertus · November 4th, 2010, 05:02 AM

hey imar,

i used an 'entitydatasource' connected to a detailsview which defaults to 'insert'.

the createdate is not in this detailsview, it should use 'getdate()' to get a date value

Imar · November 4th, 2010, 05:12 AM

Ah, I see. In this case, the date time values default to DateTime.MinValue (which is 1-1-0001) when Entity Framework creates an instance of your object.

The easiest thing to do is to create a partial class for your entity and assign the default values in the constructor. If you have an entity called Vacature, you can do something like this:

Code:

 
Public Partial Class Vacature
 
  Public Sub New
    CreateDateTime = DateTime.Now
    UpdateDateTime = DateTime.Now
  End Sub
 
End Class

Then when EF creates an instance, the constructor code gets called and the two properties get a default value. For new instances, this is exactly what you want. For existing instances, their value will be overridden by the value from the database.

Make sure your partial class is in the same namespace as your entity. For the Planet Wrox site, this would be something like PlanetWroxModel.

Hope this helps,

Imar

bertus · November 4th, 2010, 05:37 AM

thanks imar! i thought i was going crazy over this
can I also use an 'oninserting' event handler?

Imar · November 4th, 2010, 05:47 AM

Yes, you could, but that requires you to code this every time you insert something. By moving this code to constructor, you can fix this once and for all, regardless the code you use to insert the item. That is, it also works for manually code entities for example:

Dim myVacature As New Vacature() { ... }
context.AddToVacatures(myVacature)
context.SaveChanges()

Or anywhere else where your entities are instantiated.

Cheers,

Imar

bertus · November 4th, 2010, 12:42 PM

grrrrr! I guess I need some more info about the class and the constructors:

Do I need to create a class in my App_code folder or in the code behind file?

And where do I find the exact name of my entity? is it the name of the table used in the .edmx file? Because I used that (the table's name is ILLREPORT) and in this table I have the following properties: reportDate and lastContactDate, I thought the Class must be looking something like this:

Code:

Imports skooterModel

Partial Public Class ILLREPORT

Public Sub New()

reportDate = DateTime.Now
lastContactDate = DateTime.Now

End Sub

end class

but reportDate doesn't show up in intellisense. I get the following error: 'reportDate' not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protectionlevel.

Imar · November 4th, 2010, 01:15 PM

In App_Code, as you're creating a site-wide solution.

Take a look at the model's designer for the namespace, or open the model's code behind (*.edmx.vb) and search for the word Namespace. Then wrap your partial class in that same namespace.

Cheers,

Imar

bertus · November 4th, 2010, 02:12 PM

No no, I allready found the namespace, it's 'skooterModel' as in my codeSnippet...I don't understand exactly what entity to use in Public Partial Class...

The .edmx file/form/page shows all the tables I created in my database, converted to the edmx file. These tables in the edmx files (entities I guess) have names, I thought I had to use this name for the Public Partial Class???

Imar · November 4th, 2010, 02:51 PM

You don't need an Imports statement (that brings the namespace into scope). Instead, you need to wrap the type in a namespace, which places it in that namespace.

E.g.

Code:

 
 
Namespace skooterModel
 
  Partial Public Class ILLREPORT
    ...
  End Class
 
End Namespace