extract the date part from DateTime in C#

The line of code DateTime d = DateTime.Today; results in 10/12/2011 12:00:00 AM. How can I get only the date part.I need to ignore the time part when I compare two dates.

DateTime is a DataType which is used to store both Date and Time. But it provides Properties to get the Date Part.

You can get the Date part from Date Property.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.datetime.date.aspx

DateTime date1 = new DateTime(2008, 6, 1, 7, 47, 0);
Console.WriteLine(date1.ToString());

// Get date-only portion of date, without its time.
DateTime dateOnly = date1.Date;
// Display date using short date string.
Console.WriteLine(dateOnly.ToString("d"));
// Display date using 24-hour clock.
Console.WriteLine(dateOnly.ToString("g"));
Console.WriteLine(dateOnly.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm"));   
// The example displays the following output to the console:
//       6/1/2008 7:47:00 AM
//       6/1/2008
//       6/1/2008 12:00 AM
//       06/01/2008 00:00

There is no way to "discard" the time component.

DateTime.Today is the same as:

DateTime d = DateTime.Now.Date;

If you only want to display only the date portion, simply do that - use ToString with the format string you need.

For example, using the standard format string "D" (long date format specifier):

d.ToString("D");

When comparing only the date of the datatimes, use the Date property. So this should work fine for you

datetime1.Date == datetime2.Date

DateTime d = DateTime.Today.Date;
Console.WriteLine(d.ToShortDateString()); // outputs just date

if you want to compare dates, ignoring the time part, make an use of DateTime.Year and DateTime.DayOfYear properties.

code snippet

DateTime d1 = DateTime.Today;
DateTime d2 = DateTime.Today.AddDays(3);
if (d1.Year < d2.Year)
    Console.WriteLine("d1 < d2");
else
    if (d1.DayOfYear < d2.DayOfYear)
        Console.WriteLine("d1 < d2");

you can use a formatstring

DateTime time = DateTime.Now;              
String format = "MMM ddd d HH:mm yyyy";  	
Console.WriteLine(time.ToString(format));