c# - Find the datatype of Field from DataReader object

Question

I have following query:

SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("Select employee_id, 
          lastname, firstname from Employees", conn);

// Execute reader
SqlDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();

Suppose I want to know the datatype of field employee_id. How do I determine this using the SqlDataReader?

Answer 1

reader.GetFieldType(int ordinal)

will return the .NET type of the field, while:

reader.GetDataTypeName(int ordinal)

will return a string representing the data type of the field in the data source (e.g. varchar). GetFieldType is likely to be more useful to you given the use case you describe