Convert Any String Date Format To Common Date Format In C#
In this post, we will see how we can accept any date format and return with a common date format with the TryParseExact() method. Converting date to the wanted date format is a time spending and slow process in several languages including C#.
TryParseExact includes the following overload methods
DateTime.TryParseExact(string value, string format, IFormatProvider provider, DateTimeStyles style, out DateTime result)
Value: It is a string representation of a date.
Format: It is a format specifier that specifies a date look like after conversion.
Provider: It is an object which specifies culture info.
style: It is an enum DateTimeStyles.
result: return formatted date.
In the below code, I created one method namely ChangeDateFormat which accepts string date in any format and will return with fix format i.e. “MM/dd/yyyy” format.
public string ChangeDateFormat(string inputDate)
{
string[] formats = { "dd/MM/yyyy", "dd/M/yyyy", "d/M/yyyy", "d/MM/yyyy",
"dd/MM/yy", "dd/M/yy", "d/M/yy", "d/MM/yy", "MM/dd/yyyy",
"yyyy/MM/dd","dd/MM/yyyy","MM-dd-yyyy","yyyyMMdd"
};
DateTime.TryParseExact(inputDate, formats,
System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, out DateTime outputDate);
return outputDate.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
}
In the above method need to pass all possible format in string[] which we wanna accept. we have done now you can use this method anywhere in your project.
