Question

Having upgraded to Windows 8 RTM, some date time parsing code that I had has stopped working. I’ve replicated this using a standard console app:

CultureInfo provider;

provider = new CultureInfo("en-US");

string testDate = "1/1/2012";

DateTime date = DateTime.MinValue;
if (DateTime.TryParseExact(testDate, 
      CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern,  // (dd/MM/yyyy)
      provider,
      DateTimeStyles.None,
      out date))
    Console.WriteLine("Date: {0}", date);
else
    Console.WriteLine("Can't parse date: {0} / {1}", testDate, date);

Console.ReadLine();

Outputs: Can't parse date: 1/1/2012 ...

I’ve also tried making the culture info “eb-GB” (as it makes no difference for the given format). However, if I change the input date to 01/01/2012, it works fine.

Has something changed in the .net 4.5 DateTime framework that affects this?

Answer 1

You need to change the ShortDatePattern to use the one from the selected provider rather than the one in CurrentCulture.

DateTime date = DateTime.MinValue;
if (DateTime.TryParseExact(testDate, 
      provider.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern, // Change this line
      provider,
      DateTimeStyles.None,
      out date))
    Console.WriteLine("Date: {0}", date);
else
    Console.WriteLine("Can't parse date: {0} / {1}", testDate, date);