Create a date/time value from date parts in VB.NET

by Irina Medvinskaya | Apr 05, 2007 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Microsoft development tools, Programming languages, Irina Medvinskaya, Microsoft Visual Basic.Net, dtDate1, message box, dtDate2, dtDate3, date/time value, Visual Basic Tips Newsletter

Takeaway: Irina Medvinskaya shows you how to put together a full date/time value from a combination of its specific parts. This VB.NET tip also includes sample code.

When you need to put together a full date/time value from a combination of its specific parts, you can overload the Date object's constructors and assign the necessary date/time value parts to it. This tip shows how to perform the functionality.

Putting together a date/time value

There is more than one way to put together a date/time value in VB.NET. Listing A shows different ways of achieving the same functionality.

• The first message box will show: dtDate1: 1/2/2007 12:00:00 A.M.
• The second message box will show: dtDate2: 1/2/2007 12:00:00 A.M.
• The third message box will show: dtDate3: 2/3/2007 3:01:59 A.M.
• The fourth message box will show: dtDate4: 2/3/2007 3:01:59 P.M.

Notes about the example

To set the value of the variable dtDate1, I utilize the # sign to set the date to 1/2/2007. Since the time is not specified, the system will assign the time 12:00:00 A.M. by default. (If you had specified #1/2/2007 3:59:00 PM#, the time assigned would have been 3:59:00 P.M.)

To set the value of the variable dtDate2, I utilize the Date object, passing to it the same date values as for dtDate1. The result is the same; dtDate2 shows exactly the same date as dtDate1 and, since I skipped the time, the time is also set by default to 12:00:00 A.M.

To set the value of the variable dtDate3, I provide full information including the time. Notice that I use military time to set it to 3:00:00 A.M.

To set the value of the variable dtDate4, I use the same date and time as in dtDate3, but I use 15:00:00 for the hour, which results in 3:00:00 P.M.

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