Format Excel column date to MM/DD/YYYY in Visual Studio vb.net

Hi all.

I'm exporting a datagridview control to Excel and I would like to format one of the columns to MM/DD/YYYY once it gets to Excel because the data is exporting to Excel as YYYY-MM-DD

In my code below I tried doing it but it's not changing the date format to MM/DD/YYYY as I would like: oXLSheet.Range("E:E").NumberFormat = "MM/DD/YYYY"

Thank you in advance.

 Dim oXLApp As Excel.Application 'Declare the object variables
        Dim oXLBook As Excel.Workbook
        Dim oXLSheet As Excel.Worksheet

        oXLApp = New Excel.Application  'Create a new instance of Excel
        oXLBook = oXLApp.Workbooks.Add

        oXLSheet = oXLBook.Worksheets(1)
        oXLApp.Visible = True

        Dim sql As String = "" & BuilderFilter() & ""   'The SQL Select statement used to populate the datagridview control when the search button is clicked

        Dim cn As New ADODB.Connection()
        Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset()
        Dim cnStr As String
        Dim cmd As New ADODB.Command()

        cnStr = "Provider=SQLOLEDB;Data Source=myServer;Initial Catalog=myDB;Integrated Security=SSPI;"

        cn.Open(cnStr)
        cmd.ActiveConnection = cn
        cmd.CommandText = sql
        rs = cmd.Execute
        oXLSheet.Range("A1").CopyFromRecordset(rs)
        rs.Close()
        cn.Close()

        'Insert column headers
        oXLSheet.Rows(1).Insert()
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 1).Value = "Blanket Order No"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 2).Value = "Customer Blanket Order No"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 3).Value = "Status"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 4).Value = "Account"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 5).Value = "Blanket Order Date"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 6).Value = "Blanket Order End Date"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 7).Value = "Blanket Create Date"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 8).Value = "Blanket Closed Date"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 9).Value = "Item Number"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 10).Value = "Quantity"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 11).Value = "Minimum Stock Qty"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 12).Value = "Item Status"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 13).Value = "Item Closed Date"
        oXLSheet.Cells(1, 14).Value = "Notes"

        oXLSheet.UsedRange.Borders.LineStyle = 1
        oXLApp.Columns.AutoFit()

        oXLSheet.Range("A1:N1").Font.Bold = True
        oXLSheet.Range("E:E").NumberFormat = "MM/DD/YYYY"


        oXLBook = Nothing   'Disconnect from Excel (let the user take over)
        oXLApp = Nothing
        oXLSheet = Nothing

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LVL 55

Rgonzo1971Connect With a Mentor Commented: 2016-08-03

one way to solve it is to change your sql to give back numbers as dates you can then format them to dates or to change the sql to give back the formatted text of the date

Rgonzo1971Commented: 2016-08-03

Hi,
pls try

mm\/dd\/yyyy

Regards

printmediaAuthor Commented: 2016-08-03

Thank you for your reply.

I tried mm\/dd\/yyyy

Did not work.

But I did notice that if I go into each cell and double click the cell, it changes it to mm/dd/yyyy (I saw this before applying your code suggestion). And when I go to the column "Format" it says "Custom".

Maybe you could change the type of the data with something like this

for each c as oXLApp.Range in oXLApp.Range(oXLSheet.Range("E2"), oXLSheet.Range("E1048576").End(oXlApp.XlDirection.xlUp))
    c.Value = CInt(DateValue(c.Value))
Next

I changed the sql to give back the formatted text of the date as you suggested and it correctly exported the date as MM/DD/YYY to Excel. I didn't need to use mm\/dd\/yyyy

Here's what I did in the sql statement:

CONVERT(VARCHAR,BlanketOrderDate,101) AS BlanketOrderDate

Thanks for your help.

Format Excel column date to MM/DD/YYYY in Visual Studio vb.net

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