Cookbooks
C#
Chapter 7. Dates and Times
Parsing a date from a string

C#:
Parsing a date from a string

How to:

Basic Parsing:

The DateTime.Parse and DateTime.TryParse methods are the go-to options for converting a string into a DateTime. Here’s a quick example:

string dateString = "2023-04-12";
DateTime parsedDate;

if (DateTime.TryParse(dateString, out parsedDate))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Successfully parsed: {parsedDate}");
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine("Failed to parse.");
}
// Output: Successfully parsed: 4/12/2023 12:00:00 AM

Specifying a Culture:

Sometimes, you need to parse a date string that’s in a specific culture format. You can achieve this using the CultureInfo class:

using System.Globalization;

string dateString = "12 avril 2023";
var cultureInfo = new CultureInfo("fr-FR");
DateTime parsedDate = DateTime.Parse(dateString, cultureInfo);

Console.WriteLine(parsedDate);
// Output: 4/12/2023 12:00:00 AM

Exact Parsing with a Specific Format:

For scenarios where dates come in a specific format that might not be standard, DateTime.ParseExact comes in handy:

string dateString = "Wednesday, 12 April 2023";
string format = "dddd, d MMMM yyyy";
DateTime parsedDate = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Console.WriteLine(parsedDate);
// Output: 4/12/2023 12:00:00 AM

Using NodaTime:

For even more robust date and time parsing, consider using the popular third-party library NodaTime. It provides a wider range of date/time handling capabilities:

using NodaTime;
using NodaTime.Text;

var pattern = LocalDatePattern.CreateWithInvariantCulture("yyyy-MM-dd");
var parseResult = pattern.Parse("2023-04-12");

if (parseResult.Success)
{
    LocalDate localDate = parseResult.Value;
    Console.WriteLine(localDate); // 2023-04-12
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine("Failed to parse.");
}

NodaTime offers extensive support for time zones, period and duration concepts, and many different calendar systems, making it a powerful choice for complex date and time manipulation in .NET applications.

Getting the current date