Can't get value from DataSet into variable without explicit casting?
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Hey guys, got a question for you all! I've got a DataSet/DataTable, created by using a DataAdapter.Fill call. I'm writing a C# class that handles all the ADO.NET work I need, and a different class will call the public methods of this class. So; I've created the two public properties I need-
Public String _custIdandPublic DateTime _orderDate. But, I can't get the values out of the DataSet/DataTable/DataColumn without doing (in my mind) useless casting! For instance, this doesn't work:_custID = dsOrders.Tables["tblOrd"].Rows[iCurrentRow][0];I get the message "Cannot implicitly convert type 'object' to 'string' ". To make it work, I have to do:_custID = (String)dsOrders.Tables["tblOrd"].Rows[iCurrentRow][0];....or...._custID = dsOrders.Tables["tblOrd"].Rows[iCurrentRow][0].ToString();I'm confused as to why? The following line displays "System.String":Console.WriteLine(dsOrders.Tables["tblOrd"].Rows[iCurrentRow].Table.Columns[0].DataType);So, shouldn't that mean that I don't have to do anything else? Why do I need to use (String) or .ToString() ? And I also can't get the DateTime into a variable. Trying_orderDate = dsHousing.Tables["tblOrd"].Rows[iCurrentRow][1];gives me "Cannot implicitly convert type 'object' to 'System.DateTime' ". And, again, if I display the value for Columns[1].DataType, it shows me "System.DateTime". Worse, there's no ".ToDateTime()" method of the Column object, so the only way I can get the DateTime field out is to cast it to a string, and then convert it back to a DateTime. Compared to my problem with the String column, I'm doing twice the un-necessary work just to get the DateTime column! Is this really what's supposed to happen? If the DataType shows string, why do I need to perform an explicit conversion from object to string? It seems like I'm doing un-necessary work; if the value is stored as a certain datatype, I should be able to pull it out of the DataTable and put it into a variable of the same type. I even toyed with the idea of .NET assuming I wanted the DataColumn being put into a String- but I can't find a property of DataColumn that just gives me the value. In classic ADO, there was a Field object, which had a Value property. I can understand "DataColumn" being an object, but is there a specific property for pulling the value out of DataColumn? For instance, if those code samples I just gave would be in classic