[c#] Converting a String to DateTime

How do you convert a string such as 2009-05-08 14:40:52,531 into a DateTime?

Use DateTime.Parse(string):

DateTime dateTime = DateTime.Parse(dateTimeStr);

String now = DateTime.Now.ToString("YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS");//make it datetime
DateTime.Parse(now);

this one gives you

2019-08-17 11:14:49.000

Nobody seems to implemented an extension method. With the help of @CMS's answer:

Working and improved full source example is here: Gist Link

namespace ExtensionMethods {
    using System;
    using System.Globalization;

    public static class DateTimeExtensions {
        public static DateTime ToDateTime(this string s, 
                  string format = "ddMMyyyy", string cultureString = "tr-TR") {
            try {
                var r = DateTime.ParseExact(
                    s: s,
                    format: format,
                    provider: CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(cultureString));
                return r;
            } catch (FormatException) {
                throw;
            } catch (CultureNotFoundException) {
                throw; // Given Culture is not supported culture
            }
        }

        public static DateTime ToDateTime(this string s, 
                    string format, CultureInfo culture) {
            try {
                var r = DateTime.ParseExact(s: s, format: format, 
                                        provider: culture);
                return r;
            } catch (FormatException) {
                throw;
            } catch (CultureNotFoundException) {
                throw; // Given Culture is not supported culture
            }

        }

    }
}

namespace SO {
    using ExtensionMethods;
    using System;
    using System.Globalization;

    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            var mydate = "29021996";
            var date = mydate.ToDateTime(format: "ddMMyyyy"); // {29.02.1996 00:00:00}

            mydate = "2016 3";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime("yyyy M"); // {01.03.2016 00:00:00}

            mydate = "2016 12";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime("yyyy d"); // {12.01.2016 00:00:00}

            mydate = "2016/31/05 13:33";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime("yyyy/d/M HH:mm"); // {31.05.2016 13:33:00}

            mydate = "2016/31 Ocak";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime("yyyy/d MMMM"); // {31.01.2016 00:00:00}

            mydate = "2016/31 January";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime("yyyy/d MMMM", cultureString: "en-US"); 
            // {31.01.2016 00:00:00}

            mydate = "11/?????/1437";
            date = mydate.ToDateTime(
                culture: CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("ar-SA"),
                format: "dd/MMMM/yyyy"); 
         // Weird :) I supposed dd/yyyy/MMMM but that did not work !?$^&*

            System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(
               date.Equals(new DateTime(year: 2016, month: 5, day: 18)));
        }
    }
}

Different cultures in the world write date strings in different ways. For example, in the US 01/20/2008 is January 20th, 2008. In France this will throw an InvalidFormatException. This is because France reads date-times as Day/Month/Year, and in the US it is Month/Day/Year.

Consequently, a string like 20/01/2008 will parse to January 20th, 2008 in France, and then throw an InvalidFormatException in the US.

To determine your current culture settings, you can use System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.

string dateTime = "01/08/2008 14:50:50.42";  
        DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(dateTime);  
        Console.WriteLine("Year: {0}, Month: {1}, Day: {2}, Hour: {3}, Minute: {4}, Second: {5}, Millisecond: {6}",  
                          dt.Year, dt.Month, dt.Day, dt.Hour, dt.Minute, dt.Second, dt.Millisecond);  

Do you want it fast?

Let's say you have a date with format yyMMdd.

The fastest way to convert it that I found is:

var d = new DateTime(
(s[0] - '0') * 10 + s[1] - '0' + 2000, 
(s[2] - '0') * 10 + s[3] - '0', 
(s[4] - '0') * 10 + s[5] - '0')

Just, choose the indexes according to your date format of choice. If you need speed probably you don't mind the 'non-generic' way of the function.

This method takes about 10% of the time required by:

var d = DateTime.ParseExact(s, "yyMMdd", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

string input;
DateTime db;
Console.WriteLine("Enter Date in this Format(YYYY-MM-DD): ");
input = Console.ReadLine();
db = Convert.ToDateTime(input);

//////// this methods convert string value to datetime
///////// in order to print date

Console.WriteLine("{0}-{1}-{2}",db.Year,db.Month,db.Day);

Since you are handling 24-hour based time and you have a comma separating the seconds fraction, I recommend that you specify a custom format:

DateTime myDate = DateTime.ParseExact("2009-05-08 14:40:52,531", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,fff",
                                       System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

You have basically two options for this. DateTime.Parse() and DateTime.ParseExact().

The first is very forgiving in terms of syntax and will parse dates in many different formats. It is good for user input which may come in different formats.

ParseExact will allow you to specify the exact format of your date string to use for parsing. It is good to use this if your string is always in the same format. This way, you can easily detect any deviations from the expected data.

You can parse user input like this:

DateTime enteredDate = DateTime.Parse(enteredString);

If you have a specific format for the string, you should use the other method:

DateTime loadedDate = DateTime.ParseExact(loadedString, "d", null);

"d" stands for the short date pattern (see MSDN for more info) and null specifies that the current culture should be used for parsing the string.

DateTime.Parse

Syntax:

DateTime.Parse(String value)
DateTime.Parse(String value, IFormatProvider provider)
DateTime.Parse(String value, IFormatProvider provider, DateTypeStyles styles)

Example:

string value = "1 January 2019";
CultureInfo provider = new CultureInfo("en-GB");
DateTime.Parse(value, provider, DateTimeStyles.NoCurrentDateDefault););

• Value: string representation of date and time.
• Provider: object which provides culture specific info.
• Styles: formatting options that customize string parsing for some date and time parsing methods. For instance, AllowWhiteSpaces is a value which helps to ignore all spaces present in string while it parse.

It's also worth remembering DateTime is an object that is stored as number internally in the framework, Format only applies to it when you convert it back to string.

• Parsing converting a string to the internal number type.

• Formatting converting the internal numeric value to a readable string.

I recently had an issue where I was trying to convert a DateTime to pass to Linq what I hadn't realised at the time was format is irrelevant when passing DateTime to a Linq Query.

DateTime SearchDate = DateTime.Parse(searchDate);
applicationsUsages = applicationsUsages.Where(x => DbFunctions.TruncateTime(x.dateApplicationSelected) == SearchDate.Date);

Full DateTime Documentation

You could also use DateTime.TryParseExact() as below if you are unsure of the input value.

DateTime outputDateTimeValue;
if (DateTime.TryParseExact("2009-05-08 14:40:52,531", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,fff", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, out outputDateTimeValue))
{
    return outputDateTimeValue;
}
else
{
    // Handle the fact that parse did not succeed
}

I tried various ways. What worked for me was this:

Convert.ToDateTime(data, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

data for me was times like this 9/24/2017 9:31:34 AM

I just found an elegant way:

Convert.ChangeType("2020-12-31", typeof(DateTime));

Convert.ChangeType("2020/12/31", typeof(DateTime));

Convert.ChangeType("2020-01-01 16:00:30", typeof(DateTime));

Convert.ChangeType("2020/12/31 16:00:30", typeof(DateTime), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-GB"));

Convert.ChangeType("11/?????/1437", typeof(DateTime), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("ar-SA"));

Convert.ChangeType("2020-02-11T16:54:51.466+03:00", typeof(DateTime)); // format: "yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss'.'fffzzz"

Try the below, where strDate is your date in 'MM/dd/yyyy' format

var date = DateTime.Parse(strDate,new CultureInfo("en-US", true))

Put this code in a static class> public static class ClassName{ }

public static DateTime ToDateTime(this string datetime, char dateSpliter = '-', char timeSpliter = ':', char millisecondSpliter = ',')
{
   try
   {
      datetime = datetime.Trim();
      datetime = datetime.Replace("  ", " ");
      string[] body = datetime.Split(' ');
      string[] date = body[0].Split(dateSpliter);
      int year = date[0].ToInt();
      int month = date[1].ToInt();
      int day = date[2].ToInt();
      int hour = 0, minute = 0, second = 0, millisecond = 0;
      if (body.Length == 2)
      {
         string[] tpart = body[1].Split(millisecondSpliter);
         string[] time = tpart[0].Split(timeSpliter);
         hour = time[0].ToInt();
         minute = time[1].ToInt();
         if (time.Length == 3) second = time[2].ToInt();
         if (tpart.Length == 2) millisecond = tpart[1].ToInt();
      }
      return new DateTime(year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond);
   }
   catch
   {
      return new DateTime();
   }
}

In this way, you can use

string datetime = "2009-05-08 14:40:52,531";
DateTime dt0 = datetime.TToDateTime();

DateTime dt1 = "2009-05-08 14:40:52,531".ToDateTime();
DateTime dt5 = "2009-05-08".ToDateTime();
DateTime dt2 = "2009/05/08 14:40:52".ToDateTime('/');
DateTime dt3 = "2009/05/08 14.40".ToDateTime('/', '.');
DateTime dt4 = "2009-05-08 14:40-531".ToDateTime('-', ':', '-');

Convert.ToDateTime or DateTime.Parse

try this

DateTime myDate = DateTime.Parse(dateString);

a better way would be this:

DateTime myDate;
if (!DateTime.TryParse(dateString, out myDate))
{
    // handle parse failure
}