C# adding data to a SQL table with ASP.NET throws an error
System.InvalidCastException: "Specified cast is not valid"
This is for a foreign key column with a data type of bigint.
I set my type in C# to be Int64, after int definition threw an error but still get the error.
Is this because I can’t add to a column that has foreign keys? Do I need to cascade?
This is my datacontroller:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Web.Http;
using SchoolDb.Models;
using MySql.Data.MySqlClient;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace SchoolDb.Controllers
{
public class CoursesDataController : ApiController
{
private SchoolDbContext School = new SchoolDbContext();
/// <summary>
/// returns list of courses in the system
/// </summary>
/// <example>GET api/CoursesData/ListCourses</example>
/// <returns>a list of courses</returns>
[HttpGet]
[Route("api/CourseData/ListCourses/{SearchKey?}")]
public IEnumerable<Course> ListCourses(string SearchKey = null)
{
//create an instance of a connection
MySqlConnection Conn = School.AccessDatabase();
//open the connection between server and database
Conn.Open();
string query = "Select * from classes where lower(classname) like lower(@key) or classid like (@key)";
Debug.WriteLine("the search key is " + query);
// establish a new command query for our database
MySqlCommand cmd = Conn.CreateCommand();
// SQL query
cmd.CommandText = query;
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@key", "%" + SearchKey + "%");
cmd.Prepare();
// gather result set of query into variable
MySqlDataReader ResultSet = cmd.ExecuteReader();
// create an empty list of courses
List<Course> Courses = new List<Course> { };
while (ResultSet.Read())
{
// access column information by the db column name as an index
int ClassId = (int)ResultSet["classid"];
string ClassCode = (string)ResultSet["classcode"];
Int64 TeacherId = (Int64)ResultSet["teacherid"];
DateTime StartDate = (DateTime)ResultSet["startdate"];
DateTime FinishDate = (DateTime)ResultSet["finishdate"];
string ClassName = (string)ResultSet["classname"];
Course NewCourse = new Course();
NewCourse.ClassId = ClassId;
NewCourse.ClassCode = ClassCode;
NewCourse.TeacherId = TeacherId;
NewCourse.StartDate = StartDate;
NewCourse.FinishDate = FinishDate;
NewCourse.ClassName = ClassName;
// add the course info to the list
Courses.Add(NewCourse);
}
Conn.Close();
// return the final list of courses
return Courses;
}
/// <summary>
/// returns a single instance of a course
/// </summary>
/// <param name="id">class id</param>
/// <returns>info on a particular course based on classid input</returns>
[HttpGet]
public Course FindCourse(int id)
{
Course NewCourse = new Course();
// create an instance of a connection
MySqlConnection Conn = School.AccessDatabase();
// open the connection between server and database
Conn.Open();
// establish a new command query for our database
MySqlCommand cmd = Conn.CreateCommand();
// SQL query
cmd.CommandText = "Select * from classes where classid = " + id;
// gather result set of query into variable
MySqlDataReader ResultSet = cmd.ExecuteReader();
while (ResultSet.Read())
{
// access column information by the db column name as an index
int ClassId = (int)ResultSet["classid"];
string ClassCode = (string)ResultSet["classcode"];
Int64 TeacherId = (Int64)ResultSet["teacherid"];
DateTime StartDate = (DateTime)ResultSet["startdate"];
DateTime FinishDate = (DateTime)ResultSet["finishdate"];
string ClassName = (string)ResultSet["classname"];
NewCourse.ClassId = ClassId;
NewCourse.ClassCode = ClassCode;
NewCourse.TeacherId = TeacherId;
NewCourse.StartDate = StartDate;
NewCourse.FinishDate = FinishDate;
NewCourse.ClassName = ClassName;
}
return NewCourse;
}
/// <summary>
///
/// </summary>
/// <param name="id"></param>
/// <example>POST: /api/CoursesData/DeleteCourse/3</example>
[HttpPost]
public void DeleteCourse(int id)
{
// create an instance of a connection
MySqlConnection Conn = School.AccessDatabase();
// open the connection between server and database
Conn.Open();
// establish a new command query for our database
MySqlCommand cmd = Conn.CreateCommand();
// SQL query
cmd.CommandText = "Delete from classes where classid=@id";
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@id", id);
cmd.Prepare();
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
Conn.Close();
}
[HttpPost]
public void AddCourse(Course NewCourse)
{
// create an instance of a connection
MySqlConnection Conn = School.AccessDatabase();
// open the connection between server and database
Conn.Open();
// establish a new command query for our database
MySqlCommand cmd = Conn.CreateCommand();
// SQL query
cmd.CommandText = "insert into classes (classcode, teacherid, startdate, finishdate, classname) value (@ClassCode, @TeacherId, @StartDate,@FinishDate,@ClassName)";
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ClassCode", NewCourse.ClassCode);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@TeacherId", NewCourse.TeacherId);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@StartDate", NewCourse.StartDate);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@FinishDate",NewCourse.FinishDate );
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ClassName", NewCourse.ClassName);
cmd.Prepare();
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
Conn.Close();
}
}
}
2
Answers
You didn’t specify which line the
InvalidCastException
occurs on, so I’m going to assume it’s one of the following lines with explicit casts:One possibility is trying to retrieve an
int
from along
column, or vice versa. This can be avoided by using theGetInt32
orGetInt64
method. These will convert the value to a smaller size if possible, otherwise throw anOverflowException
.Another possibility is that some of the columns contain
NULL
. In that case,ResultSet["Name"]
will returnDBNull.Value
, which can’t be cast to a string (or int or DateTime).Depending on what columns can contain
NULL
values, you likely need code similar to the following:But I would recommend using an ORM like Dapper to simplify all of this code and map a DB row easily to a C# object.
Hello there : An InvalidCastException basically is thrown when the conversion of an instance of one type to another type is not supported(and that is the definition of it). For example, attempting to convert a Char value to a DateTime value throws an InvalidCastException exception.
in your case I think first of all where you are casting "startdate" to DateTime you need to surround that whole code with a Try{}Catch(InvalidCastException ex){}. Then for the actual problem I think you need to use var instead of DateTime or Int64 if you have a dought about the return type .