I get the follow error at runtime "System.InvalidCastException: Specified cast is not valid."
Any ideas?

Having to cast the fields seems strange to start with. This dataset was created from an XML string passed, and this included the types.

>You need to cast the DataRow value to an int like the following:
>
>

>(int)dsClinserv.Tables["cresult"].Rows[0]["fk_dept"];
>

>
>>How can I get an interger value out of a dataset without converting to a string and then back to an integer? I am using the following (very rundundant) code. There must be a better way.
>>
>>

>>Convert.ToInt16(dsClinserv.Tables["cresult"].Rows[0]["fk_dept"].ToString())
>>