ADO adDate field returns "12:00 am" when it's value is Null

Question

We are working on a project that generates a report using ActiveReports 2(COM for VB6), the data is coming from an ADO Recordset that we created manually(we are using a MultiValue Database that doesn't return Recordsets).

If I set the data field is a date, and I set Recordset type to adDate and have null or blank value, it returns "12:00 am" in ActiveReports. If the field has data, it displays correctly. I even exported the record set to excel, and it worked correctly.

Has anyone seen ActiveReport have this problem before?

Answer 1

No experience with AR2 but I do have extensive experience with the sharpgrid control from the same company.

I would try setting the value to EMPTY oCtrl.value = Empty or blank string oCtrl.value = "" or oCtrl.value = Null. You may need to set these values after the data from the recordset has been loaded.

Answer 2

I'm not sure how ADO recordsets deal with adDate types and "null or blank" or empty or nothing (keep in mind each of these values are different, and may be handled differently in ADO itself too). If you're using null (or vbNull?), you do need to tell the recordset that the field is nullable. I found a partial post about null and dates in ADO here.

However, regardless, on the ActiveReports side of things you can control how any of those values are displayed as long as you can detect it in the recordset. Use the Format event for the section containing the control containing your date to change the textbox's output.

Specifically, check the Textbox/Field control's DataValue property and if it is your "null or blank" value (whatever value you are putting in your recordset), set the Field controls' Text property to an empty string. Below is aproximately what I would expect your format event's code to look like:

Private Sub Detail_Format()
   ' If date value is null or blank value Then make sure the date textbox displays as empty in the report output:
   If txtDate.DataValue is Nothing Then
      txtDate.Text = ""
   End If
End Sub