JSON date from tweeter to C# format

Question

How to format a JSON date obtained from twitter to a C# DateTime ? Here is the format of the date I receive :

"Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:06:17 +0000"

Can I do it with JSON.NET ?

What happens when you do `DateTime.Parse("Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:06:17 +0000")`? — Grant Thomas, Feb 19 '13 at 16:45
Duplicate http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1551662/c-sharp-parse-json-date — Pete, Feb 19 '13 at 16:45

score 20 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 13 '18 at 15:50

20

Solved with use of DateTime.ParseExact

-> http://blog.kevinyu.org/2012/07/handling-json-in-net.html

Link Update: the linked blog post is offline. It cached copy can still be referenced via the Way Back Machine Internet Archive.

The common .NET code copied from the blog post is:

public const string Const_TwitterDateTemplate = "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss +ffff yyyy";

DateTime createdAt = DateTime.ParseExact((string)jo["created_at"], 
Const_TwitterDateTemplate, new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US"));

where

variable jo is a JSON object representing the created_at date property, but effectively the Twitter date string goes into this parameter

edited Jul 13 '18 at 15:50

John K

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answered Feb 19 '13 at 16:56

flow

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Thanks for link, next time please post date format here, parsing twitter date is a common task. – Nanoc Jul 11 '14 at 10:50
The date format string in this example is incorrect. ffff is the format specifier for ten thousandths of a second, and the +0000 in a Twitter date indicates the hours and minutes offset from UTC. The correct format string is "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy". [Custom Date and Time Format Strings in .NET](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings) – Chris Koester Aug 13 '18 at 13:02

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '15 at 21:05

Part of code from flow's answer.

public const string Const_TwitterDateTemplate = "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss +ffff yyyy";

DateTime createdAt = DateTime.ParseExact((string)jo["created_at"], Const_TwitterDateTemplate, new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US"));

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 01 '17 at 04:54

The answers above that use the ffff format specifier seem to return the correct result, but technically this is wrong. ffff is the format specifier for ten thousandths of a second, and the +0000 in a Twitter date indicates the hours and minutes offset from UTC. See the format below:

string twitterTime = "Wed Feb 22 15:49:01 +0000 2017";
string twitterTimeformat = "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy";

DateTime dateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(twitterTime, twitterTimeformat,
    CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal);
Console.WriteLine(dateTime);

Result: 2/22/2017 3:49:01 PM

You can edit the DateTimeStyles enumeration to return the local time instead of UTC if desired.

Custom Date and Time Format Strings

DateTimeStyles Enumeration

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 19 '13 at 16:57

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It's DateTimeOffset not DateTime. Following should work.

DateTimeOffset parsed = DateTimeOffset.Parse("Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:06:17 +0000");

answered Feb 19 '13 at 16:57

bytefire

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 05 '20 at 19:58

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I needed a PowerShell variant of these answers and the following worked for me.

PS> $Created_At = 'Fri Jun 05 18:15:48 +0000 2020'
PS> [datetime]::ParseExact($Created_At,'ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy',(Get-Culture))

Friday, June 5, 2020 1:15:48 PM

answered Jun 05 '20 at 19:58

thedavecarroll

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JSON date from tweeter to C# format

5 Answers5