Question

I am populating a list “results” with dates. In a query result I am getting a set of values .. where date value is in this format ..

20120510000000000

In my code, I am doing the following..

    query = service.GetData();
    List<String> results = new List<String>();
    foreach (var item in query)
    {
        results.Add(item.InDate);  
        //This is in this format - 20120510000000000
        //Here I want to convert to mm-dd-yyyy                              
    }
    return results;

I would like to convert the above date format into “mm/dd/yyyy” and post it to “results” list.

Answer 1

If the date is guaranteed to be in the [year][month][day][hour][minute][second][millisecond] format (looks like it), you can use a simple string manipulation:

var newDate = item.InDate.Substring(2, 2) + "-" +
              item.InDate.Substring(4, 2) + "-" +
              item.InDate.Substring(0, 4);

if you want it in a DateTime object, you can use the DateTime.ParseExact method:

var newDate = DateTime.ParseExact(indate, "yyyyMMddHHmmssfff", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);