Question

I am getting this exception:

String was not recognized as a valid DateTime

for this string:

2012-10-03T10:41:22.988401+01:00

using this code:

DateTime.ParseExact(TheStringAbove, "o", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);

I know that the DateTime string is UTC. Is there anything wrong with the code? Thanks.

Answer 1

That string is not UTC – it’s explictly got something saying it’s an hour ahead of UTC! That’s what the +01:00 means. You really need to think about that part carefully.

The reason it’s failing is that doesn’t quite conform to the “o” format:

The “O” or “o” standard format specifier corresponds to the “yyyy’-‘MM’-‘dd’T’HH’:’mm’:’ss’.’fffffffK” custom format string for DateTime values

Note that there are 7 fs there, but you’ve only got 6 decimal places. 2012-10-03T10:41:22.9884010+01:00 works fine – but you’ll still need to check whether it actually means what you want it to mean, based on your expectation that this is really UTC.