Converting dd/mm/yyyy formatted string to Datetime

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Converting a String to DateTime 12 answers

I am new to DotNet and C#. I want to convert a string in mm/dd/yyyy format to DateTime object. I tried the parse function like below but it is throwing a runtime error.

DateTime dt=DateTime.Parse("24/01/2013");

Any ideas on how may I convert it to datetime?

Answer 1

You can use "dd/MM/yyyy" format for using it in DateTime.ParseExact.

Converts the specified string representation of a date and time to its DateTime equivalent using the specified format and culture-specific format information. The format of the string representation must match the specified format exactly.

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact("24/01/2013", "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Here is a DEMO.

For more informations, check out Custom Date and Time Format Strings

Answer 2

You need to use DateTime.ParseExact with format "dd/MM/yyyy"

DateTime dt=DateTime.ParseExact("24/01/2013", "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Its safer if you use d/M/yyyy for the format, since that will handle both single digit and double digits day/month. But that really depends if you are expecting single/double digit values.

---

Your date format day/Month/Year might be an acceptable date format for some cultures. For example for Canadian Culture en-CA DateTime.Parse would work like:

DateTime dt = DateTime.Parse("24/01/2013", new CultureInfo("en-CA"));

Or

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-CA");
DateTime dt = DateTime.Parse("24/01/2013"); //uses the current Thread's culture

Both the above lines would work because the the string's format is acceptable for en-CA culture. Since you are not supplying any culture to your DateTime.Parse call, your current culture is used for parsing which doesn't support the date format. Read more about it at DateTime.Parse.

---

Another method for parsing is using DateTime.TryParseExact

DateTime dt;
if (DateTime.TryParseExact("24/01/2013", 
                            "d/M/yyyy", 
                            CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 
                            DateTimeStyles.None,
    out dt))
{
    //valid date
}
else
{
    //invalid date
}

The TryParse group of methods in .Net framework doesn't throw exception on invalid values, instead they return a bool value indicating success or failure in parsing.

Notice that I have used single d and M for day and month respectively. Single d and M works for both single/double digits day and month. So for the format d/M/yyyy valid values could be:

• "24/01/2013"
• "24/1/2013"
• "4/12/2013" //4 December 2013
• "04/12/2013"

For further reading you should see: Custom Date and Time Format Strings

Answer 3

use DateTime.ParseExact

string strDate = "24/01/2013";
DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(strDate, "dd/MM/YYYY", null)

• DateTime.ParseExact

null will use the current culture, which is somewhat dangerous. Try to supply a specific culture

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(strDate, "dd/MM/YYYY", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)