I am new member and just began to program in VB. Can anyone help me on how to go about validating user input into texboxes which eventually will be updated into databases?

There are data of integer,date,string etc types. How to structure them at declaration before program execution? Is there any way to force users to input data in a predetermined format?

For example, I want the user to input a number in this format :123456-78-1999. How to force the textbox which is assigned to that field to accept data in that format only?

Thank you.