Question

I call my script like this:

>Driver.exe 26268 "01-01-2011" "02-01-2011"

arg 0 : c:\Services\JasperBatchService\Release\JasperBatchDriver.exe
arg 1 : 26268

Unhandled Exception: System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.
   at System.DateTimeParse.ParseExact(String s, String format, DateTimeFormatInfo dtfi,  DateTimeStyles style)
   at Program.main(String[] args) in C:\sswork\dev\fSharpServices\ops-Projects\JasperBatchDriver\Program.fs:line 65

and this is the relavent code:

let mutable argNum = 0
let cmdArgs = System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()    

for arg in cmdArgs do
    match argNum with
    | 1 -> pmID      <- System.Int32.Parse arg 
    | 2 -> startDate <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "D", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | 3 -> endDate   <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "D", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | _ -> ()
    printfn "arg %d : %s" argNum arg
    argNum <- argNum + 1

i’ve also tried this:

for arg in cmdArgs do
    match argNum with
    | 1 -> pmID      <- System.Int32.Parse arg 
    | 2 -> startDate <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "MM-dd-yyyy", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | 3 -> endDate   <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "MM-dd-yyyy", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | _ -> ()
    printfn "arg %d : %s" argNum arg
    argNum <- argNum + 1

and this:

for arg in cmdArgs do
    match argNum with
    | 1 -> pmID      <- System.Int32.Parse arg 
    | 2 -> startDate <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "MM/dd/yyyy", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | 3 -> endDate   <- DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "MM/dd/yyyy", new CultureInfo("en-US"))
    | _ -> ()
    printfn "arg %d : %s" argNum arg
    argNum <- argNum + 1

the closest it seems I came is by using this:

(startDate).ToString("MM/dd/yyyy")

this however added double-quotes to the output….

Answer 1

It looks like your calls to DateTime.ParseExact are expecting the “D” (Long Date pattern) format, which is different than what you’re providing. If you plan on accepting arguments in the MM-DD-YYYY format, you’ll need to use a custom format instead.

Try this:

DateTime.ParseExact(arg, "MM-dd-yyyy", new CultureInfo("en-US"))