I have a string that has a date stored in it.
String date = "03-05-2013 00:00:00";
I parsed it to Datetime as follows:
DateTime Start = DateTime.Parse(date);
Start.ToString() gave me "3/5/2013 12:0:00 AM"
I also used:
DateTime Start = DateTime.ParseExact(date,"dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss",CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Then, Start.ToString() gave me "3/5/2013 12:0:00 AM", which is the exact same result as the previous one. I need to keep the original formatting. How may I do it? Thanks.
The format you parse with does not dictate how the DateTime is formatted when you convert the date back to a string. When you call ToString on a date it pulls the format from the current culture of the thread your code is executing on (which defaults to the culture of the machine your on).
You can override this by passing the format into ToString() i.e.
Start.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
See Custom Date and Time Formats.
You need to pass the format in the ToString() call.
Start.ToString("dd-MM-yyy HH:mm:ss");
I need to keep the original formatting.
Then you need to apply the same pattern again when you call ToString:
string formatted = Start.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
(Note that you should specify the same culture when formatting as you did when parsing, to avoid things like the time separator from changing.)
Note that for some formats this still might not give the exact original representation - if you're using a format which includes the text for a month, for example, that would match case-insensitively, so input including "MARCH" would be reformatted as "March".
A DateTime value is just a date and time (and a "kind", but that's another story) - it doesn't maintain a textual representation any more than an integer does. It's important to differentiate between the inherent data in a value and a textual representation of that data. Most types which have multiple possible textual representations have no notion of keeping "the original representation" alongside the data.
Related
This code returns (min time 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM) not Date.Time.Now . Try Parse works for MM/dd/yyyy but not dd/MM/yyyy . Any suggestions
Here is code
DateTime start, end;
DateTime.TryParse(EPSDate12.Text, out start);
string TNow = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss"); // Works
// string TNow = DateTime.Now.ToString();// works but gives MM/dd/yyyy as expected
DateTime.TryParse(TNow, out end); // No. gives min time (1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM)
Use TryParseExact and supply the format string.
Also examine the return value from TryParseExact to know if it failed or not (it returns a bool)
I see "EPSDate12.Text" which i suspect may be a TextBox: If you're doing this in a UI, make life easy and use a DateTimePicker - you can set the format, the user can type into them just like a textbox, but they don't accept invalid inputs, and all you have to do is get the .Value property which gives you a DateTime
As to why your attempts to parse the string you made don't work, I think it most likely that the date format Parse is using (which is based on the culture settings of the executing thread) is not the same format as the string you prepared using your forced format. Either make sure your forced format is matched to the current culture, or use a culture that matches your forced format, or use [Try]ParseExact to force the format for parsing like you did when creating the string
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.datetime.parse?view=net-5.0#Culture for more info
The datetime value is internally the same. But, ToString() return value, depends on
the local machine culture setup.
Reference article
The default DateTime.ToString() method returns the string
representation of a date and time value using the current culture's
short date and long time pattern. The following example uses the
default DateTime.ToString() method.
For en-US culture(MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss) , it will be in
7/28/2021 11:37:40 AM
If you want to see in en-GB(dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss), you can apply conversion as given below:
var culture = new CultureInfo("en-GB");
MessageBox.Show($"{DateTime.Now.ToString(culture)}");
28/07/2021 11:45:09 AM
you can also specify exact custom format, in which you want to display.
MessageBox.Show($"{DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss tt")}");
28/07/2021 11:45:09 AM
Thanks for suggestions . Yes DateTime.TryParse is not working and it could be format issue
This line of code.
string TNow = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
generates
29/07/2021 14:49:03
which looks OK but fails TryParse
My code is like this
DateTime dt = new DateTime();
dt= DateTime.ParseExact("14/09/2017", "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
I am expecting dt to have a format of dd/MM/yyyy but the output I am getting is in MM/dd/yyyy format.
This is the correct out put I am getting 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM.
Can anyone please point out what I am doing wrong here?
if you expect the format "dd/MM/yyyy" you need to specify it when displaying the DateTime. To do so you can use this overload of the ToString method:
dt.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");
A DateTime on it's own has no format. Only the string representation of it has one.
EDIT:
Important remark by Tim Schmelter:
/ is a custom format specifier which replaces all occurences with the local date-separator. You either have to esacape them by embedding them within ' or use CultureInfo.InvariantCulture as second parameter. Read this post
That means either use this:
string str_rep = dt.ToString("dd'/'MM'/'yyyy");
or:
string str_rep = dt.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Your dt is a DateTime, not a string. Format concept only applies when you get their textual (aka string) representation. What you saw is probably what debbuger/ide shows you as a textual representation.
If you get a specific format of your dt, then you can use .ToString() method with dd/MM/yyyy format and a proper culture like InvariantCulture.
string myFormat = dt.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
For beginners, it is really important to understand the difference between what is a DateTime and what is their string representation.
If DateTime.ToString() is resulting in an unexpected format, the likely case is that the current culture isn't being set. By default, the date format used is taken from the host machine. However, you can either specify it directly by setting the thread's CurrentCulture for the culture code you need, or you can set it in your application's configuration file. E.g., a web application's web.config can have a globalization section, like so;
<globalization culture="en-GB" uiCulture="en-GB" />
Alternatively, as already specified, you can set the format explicitly via a custom format string .ToString("dd/MM/yyyy").
I have problem in converting system datetime format to specific format.
for eg: DateTime dt=new DateTime();// It will return 11/15/2016 10:23 AM as per my system format.
But I have to convert into this format-- 20161115(yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss). I can able to achieve this using `DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss")? .
But its returning String format. I want in DateTime format.
DateTime as an object has no format. It contains the information as an internal numeric valus and is only formatted to string representation by your IDE or code. You don't change the format for it.
Only when you want to output it somewhere you set the format and you get a string for it.
Your DateTime is an object. That means the values are saved into its properties shown below.
If you want the DateTime to display in a different format than the default format then you use the ToString(yourFormat) method to format it. That will not change the data or the position of the properties if thats what you are expecting. (the term position of the properties itself is meaningless)
Its just representation. Just like how you have data in you database as tables but in UI you show it as a fancy HTML.
Internally the object saves data into each property and provides a default representation of it DateTime.Now.ToString(), And only when you dont want the default DateTime format you have the flexibility to format it into your choice.
So if your idea was to use this string date time for any code logic then you will just parse it into DateTime object by giving it the format the string is in like
DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(strDate, "yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
Now your string data is parsed into object and you can fetch the values as
date.Date , date.Millisecond etc
Here you go:
string str = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss");
DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact(str, "yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
DateTime is a class with various properties and methods associated with it. You can't really return a DatTime object in a different "format" - it is just a representation of a point in time. You can however, represent a DateTime object as a stirng foramtted in a specific way. So what you are doing is correct:
DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss")
Do this when you need to display the DateTime in a readabel format, such as in a log file or on a UI. If you need to pass a DateTime as a parameter, pass the entire object, not just a string representation of it.
DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, "yyyyMMdd hh:MM:ss", null);
the string is 20131024174621 which is year =2013, month=10, date=24, hours=17, minutes=46, seconds=21
What I am trying to do is to convert and format it into 2013-10-24 17:46:21.
I have tried my luck as the code below however it return such error :
String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.
String timestamp = "20131024174621";
String converted = DateTime.Parse(timestamp).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
What should be the way of doing it right?
You have to use ParseExact.
void Main()
{
String timestamp = "20131024174621";
var date = DateTime.ParseExact(timestamp, "yyyyMMddHHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Console.WriteLine (date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));
}
Output:
2013-10-24 17:46:21
DateTime.ParseExact( timestamp, "yyyyMMddHHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture ).ToString( "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" );
Since other two answer is correct, I want to point the root of your problem.
DateTime.Parse method uses Standard Date and Time Format Strings. From How Standard Format Strings Work
In a formatting operation, a standard format string is simply an alias
for a custom format string. The advantage of using an alias to refer
to a custom format string is that, although the alias remains
invariant, the custom format string itself can vary. This is important
because the string representations of date and time values typically
vary by culture. For example, the "d" standard format string indicates
that a date and time value is to be displayed using a short date
pattern. For the invariant culture, this pattern is "MM/dd/yyyy". For
the fr-FR culture, it is "dd/MM/yyyy". For the ja-JP culture, it is
"yyyy/MM/dd"
In 20131024174621 string, you need yyyyMMddHHmmss format for your current culture. Looks like your culture doesn't have this format and that's why you get this error.
For this kind of non-standart format string, you can use custom date format.
Any string that is not a standard date and time format string is
interpreted as a custom date and time format string.
As I wrote in third paragraph, this kind of date formats is based on culture. When you have this kind of custom date strings, in most case using DateTime.ParseExact Method (String, String, IFormatProvider) with specific culture is the best choice.
I have a text box in which a user is supposed to enter a date in MM/dd/yyyy format. This date is stored as yyyy/MM/dd in the database.
I want the user to enter the date in MM/dd/yyyy format and later I want to convert it to yyyy/mm/dd so that I can query the database.
How can I convert the user input date MM/dd/yyyy to yyyy/mm/dd?
If you're certain of the input string's format, use DateTime.ParseExact specifying "MM/dd/yyyy", then return the DateTime using .ToString with the appropriate "yyyy/MM/dd" format string.
There's no need to reference anything in the System.Globalization namespace for this.
That said, your database should be storing dates with a datetime format, rather than a string, in which case the format doesn't matter as your DBMS should do the conversion for you.
You can parse the date and format the result:
string str = Date.Parse(myDate).ToString("yyyy/MM/dd");
Alternatively, if the current culture doesn't support that date format and you've already validated the input:
string items[] = myDate.Split('/');
string str = items[2] + "/" + items[0] + "/" + items[1];
When you said globalization, I assume you want the change to be automatic according to current culture
You can setup culture (at Global.asax.cs I suggest)
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("the culture you want to set"); //
you do not need to touch any datetime thing, it just happened when you output them.
One thing is not the other.
Not sure why you want to insist on the text entered being MM/dd/yyyy, or why you haven't used a date time picker to make sure it is a date.
But at the point you get the content of the textbox as a date, parse it based on globalisation, or a set of acceptable formats. Now it is a date, and assuming it's a date in the database, format is irrelevant until you come to populate the text box, with some content from the DB, inwhich case you use DateTime's ToString method witha globalisation parameter, usually CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, or if you've got away with it CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.
If it's a string in the DB, then this is the least of your problems.
They key point is if you use dates properly, format is only relevant for Parse, and ToString type methods.
i am using
IFormatProvider culture=new CultureInfo("en-GB",true);
sqlcommand cmd=new sqlcommand("query",con);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#date",DateTime.Parse(txtdate.Text.Trim(),culture,DateTimeStyles.NoCurrentDateDefault).Date);
for this to work the format property must be set to dd/MM/yyyy
and text box read only property must be false