Specifying date input format

Question

I have a asp.net textbox for date input, I use regular expression to let the user input date in dd-mm-yyyy format but when i convert the input date in datetime object, the month and day values are interchanged. How can a specify the right way for interpreting this input date?

Answer 1

You can accomplish this by specifying a culture that uses the format dd-mm-yyyy like Germany:

DateTime dateTime = DateTime.Parse("01-12-2009", CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de-DE"));
Console.WriteLine(dateTime.ToString("dd MMM yyyy"));

produces:

01 Dec 2009

Of course, you really want to do all of your culture specific processing in the culture of your user. So, CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de-DE") should be CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.

And if your user isn't used to seeing dates like dd-mm-yyyy, then don't use that format.

Answer 2

I've used DateTime.Parse() in the past.

But it sounds like you are have culture issue, so this approach might be better:

  // Parse a date and time with no styles.
  dateString = "03/01/2009 10:00 AM";
  culture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US");
  styles = DateTimeStyles.None;
  try
  {
     result = DateTime.Parse(dateString, culture, styles);
     outputBlock.Text += String.Format("{0} converted to {1} {2}.",
                       dateString, result, result.Kind.ToString()) + "\n";
  }
  catch (FormatException)
  {
     //Error
  }

More info on msdn: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ey1cdcx8(VS.96).aspx

But you could also build the date time up if that works better:

DateTime d = new DateTime(Y, M, D);

Answer 3

You can use DateTime.ParseExact

Answer 4

I'm suggesting to use DateTime.TryParseExact() and specify your date format.

Answer 5

It sounds like the app is running under a different culture to what you are expecting as user input. You might want to change the culture to the one you are expecting.