String was not recognized as a valid DateTime “ format dd/MM/yyyy”

Question

I am trying to convert my string formatted value to date type with format dd/MM/yyyy.

this.Text="22/11/2009";

DateTime date = DateTime.Parse(this.Text);

What is the problem ? It has a second override which asks for IFormatProvider. What is this? Do I need to pass this also? If Yes how to use it for this case?

Edit

What are the differences between Parse and ParseExact?

Edit 2

Both answers of Slaks and Sam are working for me, currently user is giving the input but this will be assured by me that they are valid by using maskTextbox.

Which answer is better considering all aspects like type saftey, performance or something you feel like

Answer 1

Use DateTime.ParseExact.

this.Text="22/11/2009";

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(this.Text, "dd/MM/yyyy", null);

Answer 2

You need to call ParseExact, which parses a date that exactly matches a format that you supply.

For example:

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(this.Text, "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

The IFormatProvider parameter specifies the culture to use to parse the date.
Unless your string comes from the user, you should pass CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.
If the string does come from the user, you should pass CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, which will use the settings that the user specified in Regional Options in Control Panel.

Answer 3

Parsing a string representation of a DateTime is a tricky thing because different cultures have different date formats. .Net is aware of these date formats and pulls them from your current culture (System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat) when you call DateTime.Parse(this.Text);

For example, the string "22/11/2009" does not match the ShortDatePattern for the United States (en-US) but it does match for France (fr-FR).

Now, you can either call DateTime.ParseExact and pass in the exact format string that you're expecting, or you can pass in an appropriate culture to DateTime.Parse to parse the date.

For example, this will parse your date correctly:

DateTime.Parse( "22/11/2009", CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("fr-FR") );

Of course, you shouldn't just randomly pick France, but something appropriate to your needs.

What you need to figure out is what System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture is set to, and if/why it differs from what you expect.

Answer 4

Although the above solutions are effective, you can also modify the webconfig file with the following...

<configuration>
   <system.web>
     <globalization culture="en-GB"/>
   </system.web>
</configuration>

Ref : Datetime format different on local machine compared to production machine

Answer 5

You might need to specify the culture for that specific date format as in:

    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-GB"); //dd/MM/yyyy

    this.Text="22/11/2009";

    DateTime date = DateTime.Parse(this.Text);

For more details go here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5hh873ya.aspx

Answer 6

Based on this reference, the next approach worked for me:

// e.g. format = "dd/MM/yyyy", dateString = "10/07/2017" 
var formatInfo = new DateTimeFormatInfo()
{
     ShortDatePattern = format
};
date = Convert.ToDateTime(dateString, formatInfo);

Answer 7

After spending lot of time I have solved the problem

 string strDate = PreocessDate(data);
 string[] dateString = strDate.Split('/');
 DateTime enter_date = Convert.ToDateTime(dateString[1]+"/"+dateString[0]+"/"+dateString[2]);

Answer 8

use this to convert string to datetime:

Datetime DT = DateTime.ParseExact(STRDATE,"dd/MM/yyyy",System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.DateTimeFormat)

Answer 9

private DateTime ConvertToDateTime(string strDateTime)
{
DateTime dtFinaldate; string sDateTime;
try { dtFinaldate = Convert.ToDateTime(strDateTime); }
catch (Exception e)
{
string[] sDate = strDateTime.Split('/');
sDateTime = sDate[1] + '/' + sDate[0] + '/' + sDate[2];
dtFinaldate = Convert.ToDateTime(sDateTime);
}
return dtFinaldate;
}

Answer 10

Just like someone above said you can send it as a string parameter but it must have this format: '20130121' for example and you can convert it to that format taking it directly from the control. So you'll get it for example from a textbox like:

date = datetextbox.text; // date is going to be something like: "2013-01-21 12:00:00am"

to convert it to: '20130121' you use:

date = date.Substring(6, 4) + date.Substring(3, 2) + date.Substring(0, 2);

so that SQL can convert it and put it into your database.

Answer 11

You can use also

this.Text = "22112009";
DateTime newDateTime = new DateTime(Convert.ToInt32(this.Text.Substring(4, 4)), // Year
                                    Convert.ToInt32(this.Text.Substring(2,2)), // Month
                                    Convert.ToInt32(this.Text.Substring(0,2)));// Day

Answer 12

Worked for me below code:

DateTime date = DateTime.Parse(this.Text, CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("fr-FR"));

Namespace

using System.Globalization;

Answer 13

Change Manually :

string s = date.Substring(3, 2) +"/" + date.Substring(0, 2) + "/" + date.Substring(6, 4);

From 11/22/2015 it will be converted in 22/11/2015