Set an empty DateTime variable

Question

I would declare an empty String variable like this:

    string myString = string.Empty;

Is there an equivalent for a \'DateTime\' variable

Answer 1

Option 1: Use a nullable DateTime?

Option 2: Use DateTime.MinValue

Personally, I'd prefer option 1.

Answer 2

There's no such thing as an empty date per se, do you mean something like:

DateTime? myDateTime = null;

Answer 3

You may want to use a nullable datetime. Datetime? someDate = null;

You may find instances of people using DateTime.Max or DateTime.Min in such instances, but I highly doubt you want to do that. It leads to bugs with edge cases, code that's harder to read, etc.

Answer 4

Either:

DateTime dt = new DateTime();

or

DateTime dt = default(DateTime);

Answer 5

This will work for null able dateTime parameter

. .

SearchUsingDate(DateTime? StartDate, DateTime? EndDate){
     DateTime LastDate;
     if (EndDate != null)
       {
          LastDate = (DateTime)EndDate;
          LastDate = LastDate.AddDays(1);
          EndDate = LastDate;
        }
}

Answer 6

No. You have 2 options:

DateTime date = DateTime.MinValue;

This works when you need to do something every X amount of time (since you will always be over MinValue) but can actually cause subtle errors (such as using some operators w/o first checking if you are not MinValue) if you are not careful.

And you can use Nullable:

DateTime? date = null;

Which is nice and avoids most issues while introducing only 1 or 2.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve.