Error when converting to Date time (String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.)

Question

I am trying to convert the following date string into datetime object. But for some reason it does not work. Any idea what the issue could be ?

string dt = "22-08-2018 16:53:00:000";
var date = Convert.ToDateTime(dt);
Console.WriteLine(date);

// Shaiz

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:19

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The input string seems wrong. With "22-08-2018 16:53:00.000" it will work. Note the use of "." to separate seconds and milliseconds

answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:19

Klaus Gütter

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I tried what you suggested and i am still getting the same error. – Shaiz Nov 17 '18 at 14:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:48

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I think this may depend on the current culture. The value in your example appears to be day-month-year, and if attempting to convert in the "en-US" culture (for example), it will produce the System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime. If you know what the format of the datetime string will be, you can "force" it into the conversion. Here's a unit test using your example input string:

    [TestMethod]
    public void TestMethod2()
    {
        var dtFormat = new DateTimeFormatInfo();
        dtFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MM-yyyy"; // force to day-month-year

        string dt = "22-08-2018 16:53:00.000";
        var date = Convert.ToDateTime(dt, dtFormat);

        Assert.AreEqual(new DateTime(2018, 08, 22, 16, 53, 0), date);
    }

answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:48

Frank Alvaro

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Your test works but when i try to change the pattern to " dtFormat.ShortDatePattern = "yyyy-MM-dd";" which gives me the same error – Shaiz Nov 17 '18 at 15:00
check the comment to your OP by @Gianlucca - that's probably the way to go – Frank Alvaro Nov 17 '18 at 15:02
I changed the date format from dd-MM-yyyy to yyyy-MM-dd which gave me the same error. – Shaiz Nov 17 '18 at 15:05

Error when converting to Date time (String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.)

2 Answers2