We Keep Coding

Converting System Date Format to Date Format Acceptable to DateTime in C#

How can I convert a system date format (like 3/18/2014) to the format readable in DateTime?
I wanted to get the total days from two dates, which will come from two TextBoxes.
I have tried this syntax:
DateTime tempDateBorrowed = DateTime.Parse(txtDateBorrowed.Text);
DateTime tempReturnDate = DateTime.Parse(txtReturnDate.Text);
TimeSpan span = DateTime.Today - tempDateBorrowed;
rf.txtDaysBorrowed.Text = span.ToString();
But tempDateBorrowed always returns the minimum date for a DateTime varibale. I think this is because DateTime does not properly parse my system date format. As a consequence, it incorrectly displays the number of days. For example, if I try to enter 3/17/2014 and 3/18/2014 respectively, I always get -365241 days instead of 1.
Edit: I wanted my locale to be non-specific so I did not set a specific locale for my date format. (My system format by the way is en-US)

Try DateTime.ParseExact method instead.
See following sample code (I've used strings instead of TextBoxes since I used a Console app to write this code). Hope this helps.
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string txtDateBorrowed = "3/17/2014";
string txtReturnDate = "3/18/2014";
string txtDaysBorrowed = string.Empty;
DateTime tempDateBorrowed = DateTime.ParseExact(txtDateBorrowed, "M/d/yyyy", null);
DateTime tempReturnDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtReturnDate, "M/d/yyyy", null);
TimeSpan span = DateTime.Today - tempDateBorrowed;
txtDaysBorrowed = span.ToString();
}
}

ToString is not Days
TimeSpan.TotalDays Property

You can try specifying the format of the datetime in the textboxes like this
DateTime tempDateBorrowed = DateTime.ParseExact(txtDateBorrowed.Text.Trim(), "M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
DateTime tempReturnDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtReturnDate.Text.Trim(), "M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Also you may have to check if the values from the textboxes are valid.

My first thought is to just replace the TextBox controls with a DateTimePicker or equivalent, depending on what platform you're developing on. Converting strings to dates or vice-versa is more of a pain than it seems at first.
Or you could try using DateTime.ParseExact instead, to specify the exact expected format:
DateTime tempDateBorrowed =
DateTime.ParseExact("3/17/2014", "M/dd/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Or you could specify a specific culture in the call to DateTime.Parse:
var tempDateBorrowed = DateTime.Parse("17/3/2014", new CultureInfo("en-gb"));
var tempDateBorrowed = DateTime.Parse("3/17/2014", new CultureInfo("en-us"));

try formatting your date to iso 8601 or something like that before parsing it with DateTime.Parse.
2014-03-17T00:00:00 should work with DateTime.Parse. ("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ")

Try this:
if(DateTime.TryParseExact(txtDateBorrowed.Text, "M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out tempDateBorrowed))
{
TimeSpan span = DateTime.Today - tempDateBorrowed;
}

DateTime.TryParseExact CultureInfo.InvariantCulture

Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong, I'm trying to parse the date to ensure its a valid date, if so convert it to the format I require.
I have tried different ways of doing this, but all return 01/01/0001 00:00:00.
value of string parseArrivalDate = 02/02/2013
DateTime ukDateFormat;
string ukFormat = "0:ddd, MMM d, yyyy";
DateTime.TryParseExact(parseArrivalDate, ukFormat, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out ukDateFormat);
DateTime test = ukDateFormat;
-------------------------------------EDIT-------------------------------
OK sorry, I did not explain it very well. If I enter UK format say 27/02/2013, and when I had UK format as dd/MM/yyyy it worked ok, problem was when I was entering US or any other format, it was returning the incorrect date, so I was changing the format round thinking that was the problem.
It has now dawned on me after reading your comments, that I had the uk format correct 1st time, so my problem is, how can I change the code, so that any date format can be parsed correctly.
Hope that makes more sense
Thanks

Your string
"0:ddd, MMM d, yyyy"
has a number 0, a colon :, and a format corresponding to
"Wed, Mar 27, 2013"
for example, if the culture is "en-GB" ("English (United Kingdom)"). It probably comes from a String.Format, Console.WriteLine or similar method call, where it is put into braces {} to format a text, as in
Console.WriteLine("The date {0:ddd, MMM d, yyyy} was selected.", someDateTime);
It would work with code like:
string arrivalDateString = "Wed, Mar 27, 2013";
...
DateTime result;
string yourFormat = "ddd, MMM d, yyyy"; // no "0:" part
bool isOK = DateTime.TryParseExact(arrivalDateString, yourFormat, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out result);
if (isOK)
{
// Worked! Answer is in 'result' variable
}
else
{
// Didn't work! 'result' variable holds midnight 1 January 0001
}
The format that corresponds to "27/03/2013" is "dd/MM/yyyy" (or "d/M/yyyy"). The format that corresponds to "03/27/2013" is "MM/dd/yyyy" (or "M/d/yyyy").
It is not possible to have one method that handles both styles of dates, since a string like
"01/04/2013" /* ambiguous */
could mean either
1 April 2013
January 4, 2013
so it's ambiguous, and there's no way we can tell what date is meant. See also Wikipedia: Calendar date → Date format.

your date string is: 02/02/2013 and the format you are using is "0:ddd, MMM d, yyyy" which is wrong, it should be MM/dd/yyyy if its month first.
DateTime ukDateFormat;
string ukFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy";
DateTime.TryParseExact(parseArrivalDate, ukFormat,CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,DateTimeStyles.None, out ukDateFormat);
DateTime test = ukDateFormat;
If the date you have specified contains day first then month, then use the format "dd/MM/yyyy", By the way you can using single d and M for both single digit and double digits day/month.
Currently you are getting the DateTime.MinValue, since parsing is failing because of the invalid format.

I have no idea what you expect, but your input string does not met your ukFormat pattern! So it's totally right behavior.
Change your pattern to ""dd/MM/yyyy"" to make TryParseExact work.

Your provided format looks a little strange. Try to replace it with this
string ukFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy";
And read the documentation on this.

Thanks everyone for helping me understand where I was going wrong, the code below is what I have came up with although not perfect as 03/06/2013 UK is different than the meaning of 03/06/2013 US.
I have added text above the text box asking people to use format dd/mm/yyyy.
string getArrivalDate = ArrivalDate;
string getDepartureDate = DepartureDate;
string dteFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy";
DateTime result;
string arrivalDateParse;
string departureDateParse;
bool arrival = DateTime.TryParseExact(getArrivalDate, dteFormat, new CultureInfo("en-GB"), DateTimeStyles.None, out result);
if (arrival)
{
arrivalDateParse = getArrivalDate;
}
else
{
arrivalDateParse = "notvalid";
}
bool depart = DateTime.TryParseExact(getDepartureDate, dteFormat, new CultureInfo("en-GB"), DateTimeStyles.None, out result);
if (depart)
{
departureDateParse = getDepartureDate;
}
else
{
departureDateParse = "notvalid";
}
if (arrivalDateParse == "notvalid" || departureDateParse == "notvalid")
{
if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())
{
return Json(new { Confirm = "Date not in correct format" }, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
else
{
TempData["Error"] = "Sorry your arrival date or departure date is not a valid format, please enter date as dd/mm/yyyy example 02/12/2013";
return View("~/Views/Shared/Error.cshtml");
}
If anyone can improve on the code, it would be appreciated.
Thanks
George

Rather than using InvariantCulture for this consider using RoundTrip style (ISO-8601). See this MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb882584.aspx

C# Datetime format conversion

I have a conversion problem with datetime. I have a date string as MM/dd/yyyy. Now I need to convert it to yyyy-MM-dd.
But I'm facing some error. Please help
public static DateTime ToDBDateTime(string _dateTime)
{
string sysFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt";
string _convertedDate = string.Empty;
if (_dateTime != null || _dateTime != string.Empty)
{
_convertedDate = DateTime.ParseExact(_dateTime, sysFormat, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture).ToString(_toDBDateFormat);
//_convertedDate = Convert.ToDateTime(_dateTime).ToString(_toDBDateFormat);
/// Debug.Print(sysFormat);
}
return Convert.ToDateTime(_convertedDate);
}
And I want to know that is there is any way to pass the datetime in various formats and it would return the expected format.
E.g.: if I pass date as dd/MM/yyyy or MM/dd/yyyy, the above function would return the date in format as yyyy-MM-dd.
Please provide some suggestion to solve datetime issues.

I have a date string as MM/dd/yyyy
Right... and yet you're trying to parse it like this:
string sysFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt";
...
_convertedDate = DateTime.ParseExact(_dateTime, sysFormat,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
You need to give a format string which matches your input - so why are you including a time part? You probably just want:
string sysFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy";
However, that's not the end of the problems. You're then converting that DateTime back into a string like this:
.ToString(_toDBDateFormat)
... and parsing it once more:
return Convert.ToDateTime(_convertedDate);
Why on earth would you want to do that? You should avoid string conversions as far as possible. Aside from anything else, what's to say that _toDBDateFormat (a variable name which raises my suspicions to start with) and Convert.ToDateTime (which always uses the current culture for parsing) are going to be compatible?
You should:
Work out how you want to handle being given an empty string or null, and just return an appropriate DateTime then
Otherwise, just parse using the right format.
This part of your question also concerns me:
E.g.: if I pass date as dd/MM/yyyy or MM/dd/yyyy, the above function would return the date in format as yyyy-MM-dd.
There's no such thing as "the date in format as yyyy-MM-dd". A DateTime is just a date and time value. It has no intrinsic format. You specify how you want to format it when you format it. However, if you're using the value for a database query, you shouldn't be converting it into a string again anyway - you should be using parameterized SQL, and just providing it as a DateTime.

As you have a date in a string with the format "MM/dd/yyyy" and want to convert it to "yyyy-MM-dd" you could do like this:
DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, "MM/dd/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
dt.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");

Use the inbuilt tostring like this:
Convert.ToDateTime(_convertedDate).ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") or whatever format you want.

I tried this and its working fine.
DateTime date1 = new DateTime(2009, 8, 1);
date1.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss tt");
You can apply any format in this ToString.
Hope that helps
Milind

DateTime FormatException error

DateTime datuMDokumenta = Convert.ToDateTime(txtDatumDokum.Text);
txtDatumDokum.Text is like "09.09.2011".
but i get FormatException error. Must i parse date?

Try DateTime.ParseExact with the dd.MM.yyyy format string
DateTime.ParseExact(txtDatumDokum.Text, "yyyyMMdd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);

It's not good to see, anyway try this:
string s = "09.09.2011";
DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(
s.Replace(".",
new System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo().DateSeparator));

You need to tell us why the text input is using this format. If it is because the user enters it this way, then you need to make sure that the format matches that given by Thread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern. Changing the culture (by setting
Thread.CurrentCulture) to an appropriate value will then solve your problem.
If you are supposed to parse the input no matter what format it is in, then you will need to do some manual processing first (perhaps remove spaces and other delimiter characters from the input with string.Replace) and then try to parse the date using DateTime.ParseExact and a known format string.
But it all depends on why the input has that format, and why your application's current culture does not match it.

You could try this, TryParse avoids parsing exceptions.. Then you just need check result to be sure that it parsed.
DateTime datuMDokumenta;
bool result = DateTime.TryParse(txtDatumDokum.Text, out datuMDokumenta);
You will have to determine if this is a good solution for your application.
See this example:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ch92fbc1.aspx
Judging by the date you gave you need to include a culture, de-DE accepts 01.01.11 type of dates but I'm not sure which one you actually want to use, you'll need to decide that.. the Code would look like this:
using System.Globalization;
DateTime datuMDokumenta;
bool result = DateTime.TryParse(txtDatumDokum.Text, CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("de-DE"), DateTimeStyles.None, out datuMDokumenta);
A list of cultures can be found here, select the appropriate one for you:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.cultureinfo%28v=vs.71%29.aspx
The plus here is that this code is a bit more work but it is very difficult to break. Assuming you are using a free text entry on a TextBox you don't want to be throwing exceptions.

Yes you have to parse input date in current culture.
string[] format = new string[] { "dd.MM.yyyy" };
string value = "09.09.2011";
DateTime datetime;
if (DateTime.TryParseExact(value, format, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.NoCurrentDateDefault, out datetime))
//Valid
else
//Invalid

DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(txtDatumDokum.Text)
It is right...there is no isssue

During a Deserialization call under compact framework 3.5 i've had some unexpected behaviour before.
I've converted from using the OpenNETCF serialization classes to the framework XML serialization class. In doing so, the default time format has changed and the order of property/public members. So long story short, i've exposed a text property which converts my date-times back to the format my VB6 application is expecting.
Dim dumbDate As New Date
Dim formats() As String = {"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffzzz", _
"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss:fffffffzzz"}
_datetimeTaken = dumbDate.ParseExact(value, formats, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None)
' There is something wrong with compact framework during the Serialization calls.
' calling the shared method Date.Parse or Date.ParseExact does not produce the same
' result as calling a share method on an instance of Date. WTF?!?!?!
' The below will cause a "Format" exception.
'_datetimeTaken = Date.ParseExact(value, formats, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None)
Date.blah doesn't work. dumbDate.blah works. strange.

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
var dt = new DateTime(2018, 04, 1);
Console.WriteLine(dt);
string month = dt.ToString("MMMM");
Console.WriteLine(month); //April
month = dt.ToString("MMM");
Console.WriteLine(month); //Apr
month = dt.ToString("MM");
Console.WriteLine(month); //04
Console.ReadKey();
}

your code:
DateTime datuMDokumenta = Convert.ToDateTime(txtDatumDokum.Text);
try changing this to:
DateTime datuMDokumenta = Convert.ToDateTime(txtDatumDokum);
and when u print the date/time
print datuMDokumenta.Text

How to convert any type of date to dd/mm/yyyy

I receive text from a *.csv file in any date format
For example: dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy or 4 may 2010......
How I can convert to just a single type of format: dd/mm/yyyy ?
I'm working on C#, .NET 3.5, WinForms
Thanks in advance

If you're receiving data in multiple formats and you can't identify them, you've got problems. What does "09/07/2010" mean? September 7th or July 9th? This is the first thing to get straight in your mind, and it has nothing to do with technology. You have two contradictory formats - how are you going to deal with them? Sample the file and pick whichever looks most likely? Treat each line separately, favouring one format over another? Ask the user?
Once you've parsed the data correctly, formatting it in the desired way is easy, as per John's answer. Note that you must use "MM" for the month, not "mm" which represents minutes. You should also specify which culture to use (affecting the date separators) assuming you don't just want to take the system default.

DateTime.Parse("your data").ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");

Check out TryParseExact.
public static string FormatDate(string input, string goalFormat, string[] formats)
{
var c = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
var s = DateTimeStyles.None;
var result = default(DateTime);
if (DateTime.TryParseExact(input, formats, c, s, out result))
return result.ToString(goalFormat);
throw new FormatException("Unhandled input format: " + input);
}
Example Usage
var formats - new[] { "dd/MM/yy", "dd/MM/yyyy" };
var next = csvReader.Get("DateField");
var formattedDate = FormatDate(next, "dd/MM/yyyy", formats);

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Globalization;
namespace dateconvert
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
DateTime x = Convert.ToDateTime("02/28/10");
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(x.ToString("d", DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo)));
DateTime y = Convert.ToDateTime("May 25, 2010");
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(y.ToString("d", DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo)));
DateTime z = Convert.ToDateTime("12 May 2010");
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(z.ToString("d", DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo)));
Console.Read();
}
}
}

String.Format("{0:MM/dd/yyyy}", DateTime.Now);
String.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", DateTime.Now);
etc.
Source: http://www.csharp-examples.net/string-format-datetime/

You simply want to be using the DateTime.ParseExact together with the DateTime.ToString methods.
The straight DateTime.Parse method has its uses of course, and can be clever for parsing dates that you know are in a specific culture/locale, but since it seems dates given to you may be in an arbitrary format that cannot be recognised, you may want to specifically use ParseExact.
Example:
var myDate = DateTime.ParseExact("07/14/2010", "MM/dd/yyyy",
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
var standardDateString = myDate.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");