[c#] Convert String value format of YYYYMMDDHHMMSS to C# DateTime

I have a need to convert a string value in the form "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" to a DateTime. But not sure on how, may be a DateTime.Tryparse can be used to make this happen. Or is there any other way to do it. I can do this using some string operations to take "YYYYMMDD" alone, convert to a datetime and then add HH, MM, SS separately to that DateTime. But is there any DateTime.TryParse() methods that I can use in one line to convert a "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" format string value to a DateTime value?

This question is related to c# datetime

The answer is


Define your own parse format string to use.

string formatString = "yyyyMMddHHmmss";
string sample = "20100611221912";
DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact(sample,formatString,null);

In case you got a datetime having milliseconds, use the following formatString

string format = "yyyyMMddHHmmssfff"
string dateTime = "20140123205803252";
DateTime.ParseExact(dateTime ,format,CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Thanks


class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        int transactionDate = 20201010;
        int? transactionTime = 210000;

        var agreementDate = DateTime.Today;
        var previousDate = agreementDate.AddDays(-1);

        var agreementHour = 22;
        var agreementMinute = 0;
        var agreementSecond = 0;

        var startDate = new DateTime(previousDate.Year, previousDate.Month, previousDate.Day, agreementHour, agreementMinute, agreementSecond);
        var endDate = new DateTime(agreementDate.Year, agreementDate.Month, agreementDate.Day, agreementHour, agreementMinute, agreementSecond);

        DateTime selectedDate = Convert.ToDateTime(transactionDate.ToString().Substring(6, 2) + "/" + transactionDate.ToString().Substring(4, 2) + "/" + transactionDate.ToString().Substring(0, 4) + " " + string.Format("{0:00:00:00}", transactionTime));

        Console.WriteLine("Selected Date : " + selectedDate.ToString());
        Console.WriteLine("Start Date : " + startDate.ToString());
        Console.WriteLine("End Date : " + endDate.ToString());

        if (selectedDate > startDate && selectedDate <= endDate)
            Console.WriteLine("Between two dates..");
        else if (selectedDate <= startDate)
            Console.WriteLine("Less than or equal to the start date!");
        else if (selectedDate > endDate)
            Console.WriteLine("Greater than end date!");
        else
            Console.WriteLine("Out of date ranges!");
    }
}

You have to use a custom parsing string. I also suggest to include the invariant culture to identify that this format does not relate to any culture. Plus, it will prevent a warning in some code analysis tools.

var date = DateTime.ParseExact(value, "yyyyMMddHHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);