XmlConvert.ToDateTime Windows Phone 7

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to convert an xmlattribute's value (yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzzzzz) to yyyyMMdd.

I'm trying to use:

XmlConvert.ToDateTime(xmlattribute.Value, "yyyyMMdd")

But i'm getting formatexceptions:

"An unhandled exception of type 'System.FormatException' occurred in mscorlib.dll"

Any help is very much appreciated... Thanks!

Answer 1

The ToDateTime returns a DateTime not a formatted string as you seem to want.

Try:-

 string formattedDate = ((DateTime)xmlattribute).ToString("yyyyMMdd");

Answer 2

You are getting the format exception because you are telling the formatter the string is "yyyyMMdd" but it is in fact "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzzzzz".

What you need to do is create a dateTime object using the value, then get a string back from the dateTime object in your desired format using the ToString(...) method. E.g.

  DateTime dateTime = XmlConvert.ToDateTime(xmlattribute.value);
  string result = dateTime.ToString("yyyyMMdd");

edit

According to the MSDN docs the XmlConvert.ToDateTime(string) method is depricated in favour of ToDateTime(String, XmlDateTimeSerializationMode). Docs are http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlconvert.todatetime.aspx

Suggest you try

    DateTime dateTime = XmlConvert.ToDateTime
        (xmlattribute.value, 
         XmlDateTimeSerializationMode.Unspecified);