Datetime Conversion from String C#

How to convert DateTime to/from specific string format (both ways, e.g. given Format is yyyyMMdd)?

if you have a date in a string with the format "ddMMyyyy" and want to convert it to "yyyyMMdd" you could do like this:

DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, "ddMMyyyy", 
                                  CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
dt.ToString("yyyyMMdd");

Convert string to standard c# datetime

Try the other format:

var date = DateTime.ParseExact("01 Nov 2018 10:50", "dd MMM yyyy HH:mm")

After having date object, you can convert to the format you want:

date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,fff");

How convert string to Datetime by a format?

You're looking for DateTime.ParseExact().

DateTime.ParseExact(myStr, "yy/MM/dd h:mm:ss tt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

How can I convert this 2012-08-16T19:20:30.456+08:00 string to DateTime using C#

The string in your example has an offset component so you can use DateTimeOffset:

var dateTimeOffset = DateTimeOffset.Parse("2012-08-16T19:20:30.456+08:00", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

From the linked docs:

The DateTimeOffset structure includes a DateTime value, together with
an Offset property that defines the difference between the current
DateTimeOffset instance's date and time and Coordinated Universal Time
(UTC).

Convert a string to DateTime in C#

From DateTime.TryParseExact method

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

In your example, they are not. Use yyyyMMdd-HHmmss custom format instead which exactly matches with your string.

Here an example on LINQPad;

string s = "20140519-140324";
DateTime dt;
if(DateTime.TryParseExact(s, "yyyyMMdd-HHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                          DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal, out dt))
{
    dt.Dump();
}

Here a demonstration.

Your DateTime.ParseExact example also won't work because of the same reason.

For more information;

• Custom Date and Time Format Strings

Converting dd/mm/yyyy formatted string to Datetime

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.

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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.

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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

Parse string to DateTime in C#

DateTime.Parse() will try figure out the format of the given date, and it usually does a good job. If you can guarantee dates will always be in a given format then you can use ParseExact():

string s = "2011-03-21 13:26";

DateTime dt = 
    DateTime.ParseExact(s, "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

(But note that it is usually safer to use one of the TryParse methods in case a date is not in the expected format)

Make sure to check Custom Date and Time Format Strings when constructing format string, especially pay attention to number of letters and case (i.e. "MM" and "mm" mean very different things).

Another useful resource for C# format strings is String Formatting in C#

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