Parsing an ISO string in UTC to DateTimeKind.UTC

Question

Let's say, I have a string like this - "2014-09-30T20:38:18.280", how can I parse this into a DateTime field of DateTimeKind.Utc.

When I perform DateTime.Parse("2014-09-30T20:38:18.280"), it returns the date time in DateTimeKind.Unspecified. When I try to call ToUniversalTime() on that, it shifts the time adjusting UTC offset.

I basically want "2014-09-30T20:38:18.280" itself represented in UTC

possible duplicate of [C# datetime parse issue](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12787368/c-sharp-datetime-parse-issue) — Steve, Sep 30 '14 at 22:15

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 30 '14 at 22:04

Specify DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal when you parse.

If no time zone is specified in the parsed string, the string is assumed to denote a UTC.

I'd also use DateTime.ParseExact and specify the invariant culture:

var time = DateTime.ParseExact(text, "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.fff",
                               CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                               DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal);

Parsing an ISO string in UTC to DateTimeKind.UTC

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