Public Function Question

[lorena]

I have a little function that just checks to see whether a database field is a date or null and I wanted to be able to make it accessible from all the forms on the site it is attached to - so I did this:

Public Class ShortDateClass
 Public Function showShortDate(ByVal aDate As Object)
   If Not IsDBNull(aDate) Then
     Return aDate.ToShortDateString
   End If
 End Function
End Class

My question is this: how do I access this function from within a datagrid, for example? This is the code I used but it doesn't work:

<asp:TemplateColumn HeaderText="Sched Complete Date">
<ItemTemplate>
<asp:Label ID="lblSchedCompDate" Runat="server"    text='<%#ShortDateClass.showShortDate(DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem,"sched_comp_date"))%>'/>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateColumn>

help?

[Mister E]

Trying making it a shared (static) function.

 

You can then access it with ClassName.FunctionName without having to create an instance of the class first.

[lorena]

Where do I actually put the code? Do I create a separate Class Module or put it in the Global.asax file?

Would this be the correct code?

Public Class ShortDateClass
 Public Shared Function showShortDate(ByVal aDate As Object)
   If Not IsDBNull(aDate) Then
     Return aDate.ToShortDateString
   End If
 End Function
End Class 

[Mister E]

If it's in the same namespace it should not matter. If it's in a different namespace then you need to call it with MyNamespace.MyClass.MyFunction