Question

I have a System.DateTime object and I need to convert it into a string storing that datetime in W3C XML DateTime format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ) and then be able to convert the resulting string back into System.DateTime.

Is there something ready for that in .NET or do I have to implement it myself?

Answer 1

I thought W3C dateTime had a lot more significant digits for the time.
Here’s what I use:

// DateTime to W3C dateTime string
string formatString= "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzz";
dateTimeField.ToString(formatString) ;

// W3C dateTime string to DateTime 
System.Globalization.CultureInfo cInfo= new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US", true);
dateTimeField= System.DateTime.ParseExact(stringValue, formatString, cInfo);