How to find which column is violating Constraints?

Question

I have a strongly typed data set which throws this error for null values,

System.Data.ConstraintException: Failed to enable constraints. One or more rows contain values violating non-null, unique, or foreign-key constraints. at System.Data.DataTable.EnableConstraints() at System.Data.DataTable.EndLoadData() at System.Data.Common.DataAdapter.FillFromReader(DataSet dataset, DataTable datatable, String srcTable, DataReaderContainer dataReader, Int32 startRecord, Int32 maxRecords, DataColumn parentChapterColumn, Object parentChapterValue) at System.Data.Common.DataAdapter.Fill(DataTable[] dataTables, IDataReader dataReader, Int32 startRecord, Int32 maxRecords) at System.Data.Common.DbDataAdapter.FillInternal(DataSet dataset, DataTable[] datatables, Int32 startRecord, Int32 maxRecords, String srcTable, IDbCommand command, CommandBehavior behavior) at System.Data.Common.DbDataAdapter.Fill(DataTable[] dataTables, Int32 startRecord, Int32 maxRecords, IDbCommand command, CommandBehavior behavior) at System.Data.Common.DbDataAdapter.Fill(DataTable dataTable) at Fruits.DataAccess.FruitsTableAdapters.FruitsExtTableAdapter.GetFruits(String User, String Filter) at Fruits.DataAccess.FruitsDataAccess.GetFruits(String User, String Filter) at Fruits.WebServices.External.Fruity.GetFruits(String Filter)

All of the columns are populated with 1 single row I am testing it with,

USE [FruitDataBase]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Fruits](
    [ID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [CategoryID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [Title] [nvarchar](255) NOT NULL,
    [URL] [nvarchar](255) NOT NULL,
    [Status] [nvarchar](70) NOT NULL,
    [Description] [nvarchar](1024) NULL,
    [User1] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [Date] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [User2] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
    [Date2] [datetime] NULL,
    [Impact] [nvarchar](255) NULL,
    [Solution] [nvarchar](1024) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Fruits] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [ID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Fruits]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_Fruits_Categories] FOREIGN KEY([CategoryID])
REFERENCES [dbo].[Categories] ([ID])
GO

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Fruits] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_Fruits_Categories]
GO

Answer 1

DataSet / DataTable have properties to get more details on errors.

So these details are not in the exception itself as you could think, that's the trick. See http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/405938/Debugging-DataSet-Constraint-Errors

Sample :

catch (ConstraintException)
{
    DataRow[] rowErrors = this.YourDataSet.YourDataTable.GetErrors();

    System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("YourDataTable Errors:" 
        + rowErrors.Length);

    for (int i = 0; i < rowErrors.Length; i++)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(rowErrors[i].RowError);

        foreach (DataColumn col in rowErrors[i].GetColumnsInError())
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(col.ColumnName 
                + ":" + rowErrors[i].GetColumnError(col));
        }
    }
}