Converting string dd-MM-yyyy to DateTime yyyy-MM-dd in C#

Question

I've got a string in this format:

21‎-‎10‎-‎2014‎ ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30

I want to make it a DateTime in the format:

2014-‎10‎-‎21 ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30

I have tried:

DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact("21‎-‎10‎-‎2014‎ ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

But no luck, it throws an exception String was not recognized as a valid DateTime

EDIT

I have also tried:

DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact("21-‎10‎-‎2014‎ ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30", "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

To have the same format in both parameters. The exception is the same, so the problem isn't a difference between formats. I have checked that before.

The `format` parameter is not the format you _want_ the date to be in, but the format it _is_ in. Please use the search. — CodeCaster, Jan 27 '15 at 10:42
To clarify CodeCaster's comment, the format for `Parse` needs to be the format it *is* in and the format for `ToString` the format you *want*. — CodesInChaos, Jan 27 '15 at 10:44
"a DateTime in the format" is a non-sequitur. It's like asking for "an int in hex". A `DateTime` is just a value without a specific format... — Jon Skeet, Jan 27 '15 at 10:47
See [duplicate](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5366285/parse-string-to-datetime-in-c-sharp), [MSDN: Custom Date and Time Format Strings](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) and [C# DateTime to “YYYYMMDDHHMMSS” format](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3025361/c-sharp-datetime-to-yyyymmddhhmmss-format). — CodeCaster, Jan 27 '15 at 10:49
@CodeCaster, that's not the same problem, I've checked that before — chiapa, Jan 27 '15 at 10:52
Yes, it is. Read my first comment and the [`DateTime.ParseExact()`](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w2sa9yss%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) documentation. The format you specify as second parameter must match the format of the datetime string you pass as first parameter. Then you get a DateTime object, which you can print in any format you like. — CodeCaster, Jan 27 '15 at 10:54
But as I commented below, the problem subsists with the same format, therefore, the issue isn't related to different formats. See my updated question — chiapa, Jan 27 '15 at 10:58
Let me guess. You copied your `21‎-‎10‎-‎2014‎ ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30` from somewhere else, right? — Soner Gönül, Jan 27 '15 at 11:10
i have no idea why this was down voted. seems like a legit question to me. — pgee70, Aug 13 '16 at 05:50
@pgee70, yet to find the downvotes reason. The solution involves the "invisible character" problem, which I don't think is very straightforward to understand or know. But hey, vigilantes be vigilantes and trigger happy on the downvote button — chiapa, Sep 21 '16 at 09:32

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

6

Your input string contains left-to-right mark characters, which you can see by pasting it in an Unicode-aware editor and viewing whitespace characters. See also Ideone (only visible in edit mode).

Clean up your input:

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class Test
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string dateTimeString = "21‎-‎10‎-‎2014‎ ‎15‎:‎40‎:‎30";
        dateTimeString = Regex.Replace(dateTimeString, @"[^\u0000-\u007F]", string.Empty);

        string inputFormat = "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss";
        string outputFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss";
        var dateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(dateTimeString, inputFormat, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
        string output = dateTime.ToString(outputFormat);

        Console.WriteLine(output);
    }
}

Output:

2014-10-21 15:40:30

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Community

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answered Jan 27 '15 at 11:02

CodeCaster

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Upvoted. You are the only one who mentioned the invisible character problem rather than just mentioned _hey, your string and format doesn't match exactly_. – Soner Gönül Jan 27 '15 at 11:10
@Soner thanks, but I did so in comments and closed as duplicate before realizing. – CodeCaster Jan 27 '15 at 11:11
Thanks CodeCaster, the problem wasn't as simple as format differences. To post a question like that would be stupid. I'm not aware of these invisible characters you mention but your solution works indeed – chiapa Jan 27 '15 at 11:14
@chiapa _"To post a question like that would be stupid"_ - you don't say, yet they get asked multiple times a day. Glad to help. – CodeCaster Jan 27 '15 at 11:15
CodeCaster, the string comes from a javascript date that is added to an array and passed to a C# method. So, since you mentioned invisible chars, I'm guessing the problem could be the white space between the date and the time not being and actual white space? – chiapa Jan 27 '15 at 11:20
@chiapa see [this Ideone link](http://ideone.com/fork/IcO7Nx) to see the left-to-right characters. – CodeCaster Jan 27 '15 at 11:21
But, how did they end up there? – chiapa Jan 27 '15 at 12:01
@chiapa I don't know. They are in your post, so they must be in your variables, so the javascript you're reading it from must contain them too. – CodeCaster Jan 27 '15 at 12:02

Converting string dd-MM-yyyy to DateTime yyyy-MM-dd in C#

1 Answers1