How to parse a datetime string in the format of "dd.mm.YYYY HHmmss" based on the current system "Region and Language" settings

Question

_{Wednesday, February 22, 2017 11:14 AM}

Hi,

I have an environment of Windows 2008 R2 SP1 with the Region and Language\Format set to "German (Germany)" and "Long time" set to HHmmss. I would like to parse a string in the format of "dd.mm.YYYY HHmmss" to a DateTime object but I got an exception of "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.". Below is my sample code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Threading;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    class Program
    {
        private class State
        {
            public CultureInfo Result { get; set; }
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.ClearCachedData();
            var thread = new Thread(
                s => ((State)s).Result = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture);
            var state = new State();
            thread.Start(state);
            thread.Join();
            var culture = state.Result;

            try
            {
                string strDate = "22.02.2017 154048";
                var oDate = DateTime.Parse(strDate, culture);
                Console.WriteLine(oDate.ToUniversalTime());
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

When I inserted the colon to separate the time to "15:40:48", then it was working.

Could someone please take a look and provide an advice?

Thank you,

Thang

All replies (2)

_{Wednesday, February 22, 2017 3:08 PM ✅Answered}

Try the following

CultureInfo culture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;
string format = "dd.MM.yyyy HHmmss";
string dateString = "22.02.2017 154048";
DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, culture);
System.Console.WriteLine(date);

--Vlad

Vladimir Kirnishni

_{Friday, February 24, 2017 10:29 AM}

Thanks Vlad for your answer.

The input date string is produced based on the current system culture so I need to use the current system culture to parse it back, based on your comments, I had to modify the format as below and it is working:

string format = culture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern + " " + culture.DateTimeFormat.LongTimePattern;