How to check if a MaskedTextBox is empty from a user input?

Question

I'm using a MaskedTextBox, with the following short date Mask: "00/00/0000".
My problem is that I wanna know when the control is empty:

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(maskedTextBox1.Text))
{
    DataTable dt = function.ViewOrders(Functions.GetEid);
    dataGridView2.DataSource = dt;
}

It's not working, when maskedTextBox1 looks empty (and I'm sure it is), the if statement doesn't detect that it is null or Empty.

Answer 1

You can simply use:

maskedTextBox1.MaskCompleted

Or

maskedTextBox1.MaskFull

properties to check if user has entered the complete mask input or not.

Answer 2

I know this is old but I would first remove the mask and then check the text like a normal textbox.

maskedTextBox.TextMaskFormat = MaskFormat.ExcludePromptAndLiterals;

//...Perform normal textbox validation

Answer 3

I just faced this problem. I Needed the Masked Value, but also needed send empty string if the user didn't introduced any data in one single step.

I discovered the property MaskedTextProvider.ToDisplayString so I use the MaskedTextbox with:

maskedTextBox.TextMaskFormat = MaskFormat.ExcludePromptAndLiterals;

BUT I always read the text from:

maskedTextBox.MaskedTextProvider.ToDisplayString() 

This way, if the user has not introduced text in the control Text property will be empty:

maskedTextBox.Text == string.Empty

And when you detect the string is not empty you can use the full text including literals for example:

DoSomething((maskedTextBox.Text == string.Empty) ? maskedTextBox.Text: maskedTextBox.MaskedTextProvider.ToDisplayString());

or

DoSomething((maskedTextBox.Text == string.Empty) ? string.Empty: maskedTextBox.MaskedTextProvider.ToDisplayString());