InfoPath Dev

 Hello Everyone.  I am creating the ability to set an appointment in someone's calendar and use values in the form to set the attributes of the appoinement.  I am getting stuck trying to convert two fields to DateTime.  I get this error:

System.FormatException was unhandled by user code
  Message="String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."
  Source="mscorlib"
  StackTrace:
       at System.DateTimeParse.Parse(String s, DateTimeFormatInfo dtfi, DateTimeStyles styles)
       at System.DateTime.Parse(String s, IFormatProvider provider)
       at System.Convert.ToDateTime(String value)
       at Customer_Care___no_code.FormCode.CTRL263_8_Clicked(Object sender, ClickedEventArgs e) in C:\Documents and Settings\dfisher\My Documents\InfoPath Projects\Customer Care Cincinnati\FormCode.cs:line 150
       at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Internal.ButtonEventHost.OnButtonClick(DocActionEvent pEvent)
       at Microsoft.Office.Interop.InfoPath.SemiTrust._ButtonEventSink_SinkHelper.OnClick(DocActionEvent pEvent)

Here is the bit of code that is generating the error.   

//Start Date

string StartDateSeed = StartDateField.Value;

//Start Time

string StartTimeSeed = StartTimeField.Value;

// Set the start date

myAppointment.Start = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed+StartTimeSeed);  <====== the error happens here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Guru,

Instead of myAppointment.Start = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed+StartTimeSeed); , use the following code line.

myAppointment = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed+ "T" +StartTimeSeed);

Good Morning Swathip.  Thank you for your assistance, but now I am getting this error:

Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.DateTime' to 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook._AppointmentItem' C:\Documents and Settings\dfisher\My Documents\InfoPath Projects\Customer Care Cincinnati\FormCode.cs 150 29 Customer Care - no code

Additionally, I have found that if I omit just the +StartTimeSeed I get the appointment with the correct date, but a time of 12 am - I assume because the time element is missing.

Actually what is the data type of myAppointment?

myAppointment is referrming to the AppointmentItem Object for creating the appointment in the calendar.  Here is the rest of the code - maybe that will help:

// Get the namespace

// Create a receipient object that is going to be the organizer of the appointment

// Open the shared calendar for the receipient

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.MAPIFolder sharedCalendar = ns.GetSharedDefaultFolder(myOrganizer, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar);

//Get values for appointment fields

//Subject

string SubjectSeed1 = SubjectField1.Value;

string SubjectSeed2 = SubjectField2.Value;

string SubjectSeed3 = SubjectField3.Value;

//Location

string LocationSeed1 = LocationField1.Value;

string LocationSeed2 = LocationField2.Value;

//Body

//Get Values for Date/Time

//Start Date

string StartDateSeed = StartDateField.Value;

//Start Time

string StartTimeSeed = StartTimeField.Value;

// Set the start date

// End date

// Set the reminder 15 minutes before start

//Setting the sound file for a reminder:

//Setting the importance:

//use OlImportance enum to set the importance to low, medium or high

//Finally, save the appointment:

// Save the appointment

I think I may have figured it out.  the two fields that I am using to create the myAppointment.Start are both date/time fields.  I have formatted them to display just the date in one field and just the time in the other field, but i think that IP is putting the date and the time in both fields, but just not displaying it.  Do you know how to strip the time off the first field and the date off the second field?

Hi,

Change the first field data type to Date instead of Date and Time. Similarly the second field data type to time instead of Date and Time.

That was the first thing that I thought of, but there are complications.  I am getting the data from/storing to a SQL DB as well as publishing the form to a SharePoint forms library.  The two fields in question are promoted to columns in the forms library and if I don't have them formatted as DateTime, SP tries to stick the missing element in there for me so instead of the date I get 2009-01-09T00:00:00 and instead of the time I get 1899-1-1T09:05:30.  It is odd I know and probably something to do with our SP configuration, but that is something that I do not have any control over, so here I am.

You can get the only date value from the date and time field using the following.

StartDateSeed.Substring(0, StartDateSeed.IndexOf("T"))

And the time from the date and time field using

StartTimeSeed.Substring(StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T")+1, StartTimeSeed.Length- StartTimeSeed.Substring(0, StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T")).Length-1)

Sorry to be such a pain, but I am afraid that I do not know much about writing code.  I am now getting this error:

Length cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: length

This is how I have it:

myAppointment.Start = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed.Substring(0, StartDateSeed.IndexOf("T")) + StartTimeSeed.Substring(StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T") + 1, StartTimeSeed.Length - StartTimeSeed.Substring(0, StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T")).Length - 1));

The error probably is because one of the calculations that is providing the length argument of the substring is negative (i.e., less than zero). So, now the magic question is "Which one?" I see a plus sign where I think you might want a comma.

 Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed.Substring(0, StartDateSeed.IndexOf("T")), StartTimeSeed.Substring(StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T")+1, StartTimeSeed.Length- StartTimeSeed.Substring(0, StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("T")).Length-1))

 Try that instead. Notice after the substring that gets the date: StartDateSeed.Substring(0, StartDateSeed.IndexOf("T")) there is now a comma instead of a plus.

Hello Hilary!  Good to hear from you!  Getting a couple of different errors now:

Error 1 The best overloaded method match for 'System.Convert.ToDateTime(object, System.IFormatProvider)' has some invalid arguments C:\Documents and Settings\dfisher\My Documents\InfoPath Projects\Customer Care Cincinnati\FormCode.cs 150 35 Customer Care - no code

Error 2 Argument '2': cannot convert from 'string' to 'System.IFormatProvider' C:\Documents and Settings\dfisher\My Documents\InfoPath Projects\Customer Care Cincinnati\FormCode.cs 150 110 Customer Care - no code

Just to be sure that I didn't goof it up, here is what I have:

I have made a little progress.  The data that comes from the date field looks correct - IP is leaving the time off of it so there is no 'T' so I just left that part of the code out.  In the time field, the data looks like this 12/30/1899 3:30:00 PM so it doesn't have a T either.  I am making the assumption that the IndexOf("T") is looking for a T in the data, right?  So just for goofs, I tried a space to see if that would work and I get the same 'less than zero' error, but if I remove the whole StartTimeSeed part, I get the date OK and the appointment is inserted but the time is 12 am (default I assume because we aren't passing it).

Hilary, I think that you may be proud of me.  I figured it out.  Appatently, the myAppointment.Start is looking for yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss am(or pm).  My time data looks like this 12/30/1899 12:00:00 AM(or PM) with the date always being the same because it is missing from the user input.  So, I added the T and then stripped off everything 11 spaces after the first '1' like this:

myAppointment.Start = Convert.ToDateTime(StartDateSeed +"T"+ StartTimeSeed.Substring(StartTimeSeed.IndexOf("1")+11));

I knew that taking your advice and checking out the stuff from MS would help!  Thanks Hilary!