Get only the Date without Time from DateTime

Question

i came across a situation that, i need to get only the Date out from DateTime.

i am having a DateTime? StartDate property (Nullable) used to hold the date value

i tried below,

var d = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDate).Date;

but its returning me d as eg. 6/22/2006 12:00:00AM

after doing var d = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDate).Date.ToString("d");

i'm able to get d as 6/22/2006..but i dont want to convert my DateTime? to String

is their any way to get only the Date without using the ToString("d")?

Answer 1

Use the Date property to get the Date component of DateTime instance:

DateTime dateTimeNow = DateTime.Now;
DateTime datePartOnly = dateTimeNow.Date;    // Return 00/00/0000 00:00:00

With this approach, Date property will return the date at midnight. So the time part will be 00:00:00 in this case.

There are couple of alternate ways to get the just the Date part, but the return type of it will be a string:

1.) Using .ToString(string? format) where format can be standard or custom format string

string dateOnlyString = dateTimeNow.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy"); 
//Can also use .ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");

2.) Using .ToShortDateString() to return a culture sensitive date string

string dateOnlyString = dateTimeNow.ToShortDateString(); 
//Returns M/d/yyyy for "en-US" culture
//Returns yyyy/M/d for "ja-JP" culture

Reference: here.

Answer 2

try this: string x = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString().

this will get the date dd/mm/yy given to the string x.

Answer 3

I think you question is sort of... moot.

You ask for a date without a time, but get a DateTime, which has both. I really don't think that should be a problem in most cases though:

If you create a DateTime with a certain date, and compare it to another date, and both of these have their time set to midnight, your comparisons will be valid and correct. Eg:

var yesterday = new DateTime(2014, 3, 10);
var today = new DateTime(2014, 3, 11);
var tomorrow = new DateTime(2014, 3, 12);

Comparing and sorting these will work as you expect, and so will the following:

if(today == DateTime.Today){
    Console.WriteLine("Today is the day!");
}

In other words, you should be perfectly fine just pretending like the time-part does not exist.

Also, as you touched upon yourself in the OP, you can use the property Date if you want to make sure to avoid any time-component:

// Note the addition of hours, minutes and seconds:
var today = new DateTime(2014, 3, 11, 14, 35, 33); 

if(today == DateTime.Today){
    Console.WriteLine("This never happened...");    
}

if(today.Date == DateTime.Today){
    Console.WriteLine("...But today is still the day!");    
}