C# How to convert irregular date and time String into DateTime?

Question

I have a program which converts a irregular date and time string into a system DateTime.

However as the system does not recognize irregular strings, the method .ParseExact, toDateTime and TryParse has not worked.

There are only 2 types of date time strings that the program needs to convert:

 Thu Dec  9 05:12:42 2010
 Mon Dec 13 06:45:58 2010

Please note that the single date has a double spacing which I have used the .replace method to convert the single date to Thu Dec 09 05:12:42 2010.

May someone please advise on the codes? Thanks!

The codes:

        String rb = re.Replace("  ", " 0");

        DateTime time = DateTime.ParseExact(rb, "ddd MMM dd hh:mm:ss yyyy", CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);

        Console.WriteLine(time.ToString("dddd, dd MMMM yyyy HH:mm:ss"));

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-14 07:27:52Z

6

I would really avoid regex and use what's already built-in .NET (TryParseExact method and date formats):

DateTime result;
string dateToParse = "Thu Dec  9 05:12:42 2010";
string format = "ddd MMM d HH:mm:ss yyyy";

if (DateTime.TryParseExact(
    dateToParse, 
    format,
    CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 
    DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces, 
    out result)
)
{
    // The date was successfully parsed => use the result here
}

answered Dec 14, 2010 at 7:27

Darin Dimitrov

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6 Comments

anon Over a year ago

@Darin: The regex is only there to extract the date from a larger string. See his earlier question.

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@AgentConundrum, from what I can see he is using regex to replace the whitespaces in the original string, adding 0 at the beginning of the day, etc... stuff that's not necessary with a correct format string.

anon Over a year ago

@Darin: You're right. I glossed right over the second regex. Sorry about that.

JavaNoob Over a year ago

@Darin the first regex has actually noting to do with the conversion of the time date I'll remove it....

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@JavaNoob, the point here is that you should remove all regexes and never use them for such a task :-)

|

Laramie · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-14 07:35:29Z

0

You should capture the parts of your datetime into capture groups in the Match Object, then reconstitute them any way you want.

You can use this Regex statement with named groups to make it easier

((?<day>)\w{3})\s+((?<month>)\w{3})\s+((?<date>)\d)\s((?<time>)[0-9:]+)\s+((?<year>)\d{4})

answered Dec 14, 2010 at 7:35

Laramie

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Comments

hellangle · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-14 07:45:06Z

0

This is sample code which you can try:

        var str = "Thu Dec  9 06:45:58 2010";
        if (str.IndexOf("  ") > -1)
        {
            str = str.Replace("  ", " ");
            DateTime time = DateTime.ParseExact(str, "ddd MMM d hh:mm:ss yyyy", null);
        }
        else
        {
            DateTime time = DateTime.ParseExact(str, "ddd MMM dd hh:mm:ss yyyy", null);
        }

answered Dec 14, 2010 at 7:45

hellangle

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