I have a datetime coming back from an XML file in the format:
20080916 11:02
as in
yyyymm hh:ss
How can I get the datetime.parse function to pick up on this? Ie parse it without erroring?
DateTime.ParseExact(input,"yyyyMMdd HH:mm",null);
assuming you meant to say that minutes followed the hours, not seconds - your example is a little confusing.
The ParseExact documentation details other overloads, in case you want to have the parse automatically convert to Universal Time or something like that.
As #Joel Coehoorn mentions, there's also the option of using TryParseExact, which will return a Boolean value indicating success or failure of the operation - I'm still on .Net 1.1, so I often forget this one.
If you need to parse other formats, you can check out the Standard DateTime Format Strings.
Thanks for the tip, i used this to get my date "20071122" parsed, I needed to add datetimestyles, I used none and it worked:
DateTime dt = DateTime.MinValue;
DateTime.TryParseExact("20071122", "yyyyMMdd", null,System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, out dt);
Related
I'm trying to parse a file where I get my dates as string like those:
5/18/2020 8:38:32 AM
6/8/2021 10:11:42 PM
11/24/2021 9:21:54 AM
----
I tried to use a DateTime.TryParse on my string and test the "---" case in a if statement which work but it succeed to convert only the 6/8/2021 12:41:56 PM.
I tried to use TryParseExact and specify a date format but it seem that I should make a case months with one and two digits and same the days.
I guess there is something I'm not seeing or don't know.
Thanks for you help.
It is because you are probably on a culture other than en-US which those dates are formatted in. Use IFormatProvider parameter. ie:
void Main()
{
var dates = #"5/18/2020 8:38:32 AM
6/8/2021 10:11:42 PM
11/24/2021 9:21:54 AM
----";
foreach (string s in dates.Split('\n'))
{
if (DateTime.TryParse(s, new CultureInfo("en-US"), DateTimeStyles.None, out DateTime d))
{
Console.WriteLine(d);
}
}
}
Here is the .Net fiddle link.
EDIT: Note that the version on .Net fiddle is slightly different because of the older C# version there.
Without the exact details, I have to guess:
If he only can translate the 6/8 date, you may have the wrong locale settings (you have something like MM/dd/yyyy .... but this works only for the 8th of june, what you might get wrong with 6th of august)
If you use ParseExact, you can also provide a list of valid format strings.
EDIT
Cetins answer is correct. Additionally, the title of the post is a bit confusing, because the datetime string IS consistent (in the 'en-US' local settings)
#Cetin Basoz You are right, it was indeed a culture problem. Thank you!
#nabuchodonossor You are right about the datetime string ("----" apart) being consistent. What I wanted to say was that there is no every time two digits for the days or months which would not happen if the dates were something like 05/18/2020 and 06/08/2021. Sorry, I have a hard time being precise.
I am inserting a date into my database, the value which comes from:
s.theDate = Convert.ToDateTime("06-13-2012");
and I get the error, "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime". How do I resolve this?
Try this:
DateTime.ParseExact("06-13-2012", "MM-dd-yyyy", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
s.theDate = DateTime.ParseExact("06-13-2012", "MM-dd-yyyy", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
Looking at the behaviour of ToString on a DateTime type using an InvariantCulture, this:
new DateTime(2012, 6, 13).ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
results in:
06/13/2012 00:00:00
So, conversely, one can assume that parsing the date with an invariant culture works Ok:
Convert.ToDateTime("06-13-2012", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
... and it does.
That being said, assuming date/time formats is a little dangerous. I'd say you want formats to be culture-specific when the UI is considered. Otherwise, you would want formats to be culture-agnostic. Although Microsoft have adopted MM/dd/yyyy as a culture-agnostic format, it's an ambiguous format which isn't something that I would want to build a large system on.
Just use ParseExact as already suggested or populate Convert.ToDateTime with the second parameter:
Convert.ToDateTime("06-13-2012", new DateTimeFormatInfo{FullDateTimePattern = "MM-dd-yyyy"});
There is a global standard called ISO 8601 that you may (imo should) use. Using this standard, this is what you will end up with.
Convert.ToDateTime("2012-06-03");
Here is my code:
a.dateFrom = DateTime.ParseExact(x, "dd/mm/yyyy", null);
And x has value of: 08/03/2012
However, a.dateFrom has value of 08/01/2012. Why?
You should use MM as format for month
As ionden notes, you should have a format of
"dd/MM/yyyy"
Currently you're parsing the second part as minutes (as that's what mm means).
See the documentation for custom date and time format strings for more information. I'd also strongly encourage you to consider using the invariant culture for parsing - if you're using a custom format string, that usually means you don't want to treat the input in a culture-sensitive fashion at all.
I have datetime in one simple textbox. The format of the textbox's value can be anything like DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY. I want to parse this using DateTime.Parse(string). Currently for some dates it works and for others it throws Exception. How do I handle this? How do I make sure that no matter what format is provided it always parses correct (as long as it is valid date)?
Thanks in advance :)
EDIT
As there is no fix answer to it I modify my question to ask how do I convert it to MM/DD/YYYY? What should I provide in IFormatProvider of DateTime.Parse?
DateTime needs to know how to parse the date otherwise it won't know whether 05/07/2011 is the 5th July or the 7th May. Wouldn't it be better to use a calendar control to remove this ambiguity?
I suggest using a fixed format. You may even allow your users to select the format they want to use. But you absolutely need to know the format. Then you could use DateTime.TryParseExact. For instance, what would 01/03/2011 mean? It could be mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy. You really need to be explicit about this.
I came here to figure out if I can find a better solution than mine.
I already saw some of this solution propose here in other post and google. What IMHO works better is follow:
DateTime date;
bool isDate = (DateTime.TryParseExact(txtbxDATETIME.Value,
"yyyy'/'MM'/'dd",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
DateTimeStyles.None,
out date));
//possible use:
DateTime someDATEorVAr = (isDate) ? date : DateTime.Now;
Hope somebody find this useful
That parsing problem can be solved by using the TryParse(String, IFormatProvider, DateTimeStyles, DateTime) variant so that culture info (most commonly I use CultureInfo.CurrentCulture) can be passed to it and thus removing the ambiguity.
DateTime.TryParse
Vijay
In My Asp.net webpage I need to display today's date into one of the textbox , so in my form load I wrote the following code
textbox1.text = System.DateTime.Today.ToShortDateString();
this line is giving me date like 1/7/09 but I want date like 01/07/09 , Is there anyway I can conver this date into mm/dd/yy format in C#?
DateTime.Today.ToString("MM/dd/yy")
Look at the docs for custom date and time format strings for more info.
(Oh, and I hope this app isn't destined for other cultures. That format could really confuse a lot of people... I've never understood the whole month/day/year thing, to be honest. It just seems weird to go "middle/low/high" in terms of scale like that.)
DateTime.Today.ToString("MM/dd/yy")
Look at the docs for custom date and time format strings for more info.
(Oh, and I hope this app isn't destined for other cultures. That format could really confuse a lot of people... I've never understood the whole month/day/year thing, to be honest. It just seems weird to go "middle/low/high" in terms of scale like that.)
Others cultures really are a problem. For example, that code in portugues returns someting like 01-01-01 instead of 01/01/01. I also don't undestand why...
To resolve that problem i do someting like this:
IFormatProvider yyyymmddFormat = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(String.Empty, false);
return date.ToString("MM/dd/yy", yyyymmddFormat);
Have you tried the following?:
textbox1.text = System.DateTime.Today.ToString("MM/dd/yy");
Be aware that 2 digit years could be bad in the future...
Look into using the ToString() method with a specified format.
See, here you can get only date by passing a format string.
You can get a different date format as per your requirement as given below for current date:
DateTime.Now.ToString("M/d/yyyy");
Result : "9/1/2016"
DateTime.Now.ToString("M-d-yyyy");
Result : "9-1-2016"
DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");
Result : "2016-09-01"
DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
Result : "2016-09-01 09:20:10"
For more details take a look at MSDN reference for Custom Date and Time Format Strings