Question

I need to parse string value to date time value, I have date in this format:

DD.MM.YYYY

I want to parse value in this format:

YYYY-MM-DD

I tried to do it like this:

DateTime.ParseExact(date_req, "yyyy-MM-dd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); 

But i have an error: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

I think what you want to do is parse your dd.MM.yyyy and then display it as yyyy-MM-dd.

You first have to parse the string into a DateTime:

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(date_req, "yyyy-MM-dd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); 

Now date is a representation of the date that the computer actually understands (before it was just a string). You can now display this object anyway you want:

string yyyyMMdd = date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");
string arabic = date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd", new CultureInfo("ar"));
// and so on

Don’t forget that when converting dates from strings to DateTime and back, culture and time zones are worth keeping in mind.