Hey there, I am extracting the date and time of creation of a file. the date should be 7/1/2010 2:08 PM but the format comes out as 2:08:07 01/07/2010 when called from my application. I would like it show as it does in the file explorer (7/1/2010 2:08 PM). How can I accomplish this?
string createdOnCMM = Creationtime; //this returns the 2:08:07 01/07/2010
// I think I need a modified verison of the following to reformat it
DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(createdOnCMM);
String.Format("0:{dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss}", dt);
Your compound format string isn't quite right. Try this:
string s = string.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss}", dt);
Alternatively, if you only want to format the DateTime, call ToString directly:
string s = dt.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
(That's a more readable approach, IMO.)
Note that this is very culture-specific at the moment. That may be okay for your intended use, but you should be aware of it.
From Microsoft's Standard Date and Time Format Strings, you should be able to get what you want by using the g format string like the following:
String.Format("{0:g}", dateTimeValue);
That should yield the format you'd like.
If you just need to format with your current culture's short date string then use the g specifier as mentioned in Eric's answer.
If you need the exact format that you mentioned, regardless of your current culture, then one of the following should do the trick:
string formatted = dt.ToString("M'/'d'/'yyyy h':'mm tt");
// or
string formatted = string.Format("{0:M'/'d'/'yyyy h':'mm tt}", dt);
Related
I want to convert date to a specific format (e.g. en-US MM/dd/yyyy) and I am aware about normal method to parse it.
But in my case I'm unaware about the source date format. Source date format is subject to change as per server environment. It can be en-US or en-GB.
e.g. DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
'dt' can be '27/03/2014' or '03/27/2014'.
How to convert the source date to en-US format if I don't know source date format?
(string format would be fine - MM/dd/yyyy e.g. "03/27/2014").
If you don't know the source format, there is a chance of getting errors while trying to convert. For example, try converting:
05/01/2013
A computer wouldn't be able to identify the date in such a case. It could result in two outputs: 05 Jan, 2013 or 01 May, 2013.
DateTime.Now.toString("yyyy-MM-dd"); //toString(specify format)
try this one
DateTime result;
if (!DateTime.TryParseExact(inputString, "dd/MM/yyyy", out result)
result = DateTime.ParseExact(inputString, "MM/dd/yyyy");
OR
DateTime result;
if (!DateTime.TryParse(inputString, out result)
result = DateTime.ParseExact(inputString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
If you know your environment will always be the deciding factor, why not just use that?
Try some variation of the following:
string yourFormat = ... // Whatever is your default format
if(Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.Name == "en-US")
{
yourFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy";
}
else (if Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.Name == "en-GB")
{
yourFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy";
}
DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact(inputString, yourFormat, null)
How to convert the source date to en-US format if I don't know source date format?
You need to know the source date format, only then can you convert it to the required date format.
As wiero has rightly said in the comments "If you have 01/02/2014 depending its 1 February or 2 January. You have to know how to read it".
The default format of the object returned by DateTime.Now will be the one specified in your server setting, check the screenshot below:
Referring to #DarkWanderer's comment in question:
DateTime object has nothing to do with format.
Just needed to convert it to the specific format using ToString("MM/dd/yyyy").
I was using Parse() method to convert but it will not work. BToString() method is surely a way.
This will work: dt.Tostring("MM/dd/yyyy");
Thanks #DarkWanderer.
Is DateTime format strictly dependent on the language of the OS being used? Because the following doesn't work:
DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
var usCultureInfo = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US");
Console.WriteLine(date.ToString("dddd MM-dd-yy"),usCultureInfo);
I'd like the result to print out as Saturday, 06-29-2013 but the day gets printed out in Korean 토요일, 06-29-2013.
You are a victim of Composite Formatting overload for Console.WriteLine where you could pass Format string and a series of object to be inserted in the placeholders of the format string
You need to write in this way
Console.WriteLine(date.ToString("dddd MM-dd-yy",usCultureInfo));
and you get the right day text.
See the specs here DateTime.ToString(format, IFormatProvider)
Or simply you can use
string abc=date.ToString("dddd MM-dd-yy");
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.
I've got following problem.
I set CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture and use following patterns in them:
ShortDatePattern is dd-MM-yyyy
LongTimePattern is HH.mm.ss.
When I convert dates to string I get 15-01-2008 00.00.00. But when i call DateTime.Parse("15-01-2008 00.00.00") it throws a FormatException. If i set ShortDatePattern to dd-MM-yyyy HH.mm.ss exception is still thrown. Is there any way to force DateTime.Parse to use pattern for time by setting CurrentCulture accordingly.
I know that using Parse overloads or ParseExact might help, but the whole point was to use formatting without refactoring loads of code that is already written and uses DateTime.Parse and ToString all over the place
Additional info: A also tried putting - and . in ' - it was no use. CurrentCulture is based on Swedish.
if you want to format a DateTIme using String.Format() Method you could do something like this below. String.Format DateTime C#
var dt = "15-01-2008 00.00.00";
var dateFrmt = String.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss}", dt);
Output = "15-01-2008 00.00.00"
if you want to strip the HH:mm:ss out of the DateTime variable for short date you could do the following here is an example will yield ShortDate
DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
var dateFrmt = String.Format("{0:M/d/yyyy}", dt);
Output = "1/9/2013"
DateTime.ParseExact Method if you choose to go that route
I'm writing a C# class that will convert strings to dates. Pretty easy I guess. The class accepts formatstrings like "yyyy-MM-dd" and inputstrings like "2010-10-10"
However I have some cases that give me trouble:
format "yyyyMMdd" input "19950000"
or
format "dd-MM-yyyy" input "00-06-2001"
Note that these cases have zeroes ('00') for day and/or month, and that these cannot be converted to a DateTime. I'll need to replace them.
To handle theses cases I need to split the input string in the parts, one each for day, month and year, so I can set some default day and month (probably 01) if they are missing. But I need to use the formatstring to accomplish this.
So the question is, how can I split an inputstring in the components specified in the formatstring?
Thanks
[UPDATE] Using Joe's answer I came up with this:
string[] formats = { format, format.Replace("dd", "00").Replace("MM", "00"), format.Replace("dd", "00"), format.Replace("MM", "00") };
// Parse input
DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact(txtDate.Text, formats, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
This uses the supplied format and creates alternative formats with zeroes ('00') for day, month and both day and month.
Thanks Joe!
If you have a well-defined set of formats, you can use DateTime.ParseExact, passing an array of format strings.
// Define all allowed formats
string[] formats = { "yyyyMMdd", "yyyyMM00", "yyyy0000" };
// Parse input
DateTime d;
d = DateTime.ParseExact("20100930", formats,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
d = DateTime.ParseExact("20100900", formats,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
d = DateTime.ParseExact("20100000", formats,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
Missing days / months will be set to a default of 1.
My approach would be to define various Regular Expressions and using a chain of responsibility design pattern, pass the value to the first, if matches it stops there and if not sends to the next one until one of them matches the string.
My regex pattern would separate date, month and year element and set a default value for each if it is 0.
Here for Chain-of-responsibility_pattern:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain-of-responsibility_pattern
private const string Pattern_dd-mm-yyyy = "(\d\d)-(\d\d)-(\d){4}";
private const string Pattern_ddmmyyyy = "(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d){4}";
private const string Pattern_ddSlashmmSlashyyyy = "(\d\d)/(\d\d)/(\d){4}";
I don't fully understand your problem (I don't have the rep for a comment) but I can still give you some advices.
First of all, the DateTime class provides a ParseExact method (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w2sa9yss(v=VS.80).aspx) which accepts a formatting string for date and time. You can pass your format string to it
I don't clearly understand the part about the cases: do you need to accept timestamps in multiple formats? If so, you can try/catch until you find a match, or loop using the TryParseExact method which almost works the same.
Once you have a DateTime value, use the Year, Month and Day properties to get the components you've been searching in the input string