> That doesn't make sense.  It assigns the value of a String variable to
> TDateTime, i.e. startdate = String("37260"), which is illegal.

>   int temp;
>   ifile >> temp;
>   startdate = temp;

> >   inline istream& operator >> (istream& is, TDateTime& arg)
> >   {
> >     AnsiString s;
> >     is >> s;
> >     arg = s;
> >     return is;
> >   }

> > That doesn't make sense.  It assigns the value of a String variable to
> > TDateTime, i.e. startdate = String("37260"), which is illegal.

> No, it's not.  TDateTime has an AnsiString constructor, so when using
> TDateTime's = operator with a string, a temporary TDateTime object will be
> made for use in the assignment operation.  It would act like this:

>     inline istream& operator >> (istream& is, TDateTime& arg)
>     {
>         AnsiString s;
>         is >> s;
>         TDateTime temp(s);
>         arg = temp;
>         return is;
>     }

> > A workaround is to store the value in a temporary integer variable:

> >   int temp;
> >   ifile >> temp;
> >   startdate = temp;

> I would opt to use a double instead of an int, as TDateTime is internally
> implemented as a double.

> Gambit

> I am using a TDatePicker to input a date.  I then want to save this in a
> data file ( along with other stuff).  Kinda like this:

>     startdate = StartDatePicker->Date;

>      // blah
>      // blah

>       ofstream  ofile( SaveDialog1->FileName.c_str() );
>      ofile << int( startdate ) << "\n" ;

> When I try to retrieve the date, I keep getting errors.

>       ifstream  ifile( OpenDialog1->FileName.c_str()  );
>       ifile >> startdate ;

>     The error EConvertError and lists the contents of the file and states
> that it is not a valid date & time.  The file looks like this:
> The first line is strtdate, the rest of the lines are ints and work OK.

> 37260
> 0
> 0
> 0
> .
> etc

> What am I doing wrong?