Question

I need to validate that certain variables can create a valid datetime and if so make it otherwise ignore it without throwing an exception.

I have the following code

 int y, m, d, h, mi, s, tz;
ogrFeature.GetFieldAsDateTime(field, out y, out m, out d, out h, out mi, out s, out tz);
fdr[fdrIndex++] = new DateTime(y, m, d, h, mi, s);

At the moment the construction of the date time will fail if (from MSDN)

year is less than 1 or greater than > 9999.

month is less than 1 or greater than> 12.

day is less than 1 or greater than the> number of days in month.

hour is less than 0 or greater than> 23.

minute is less than 0 or greater than> 59.

second is less than 0 or greater than> 59.

millisecond is less than 0 or greater> than 999.

I’ve had a look through and there doesn’t seem to be any specific methods to validate this kind of input.

Is there a nice way to validate this input without having to have a whole bunch of ifs or wrap it in a nasty try/catch and catch the ArgumentOutOfRangeException?

Answer 1

You can use this method:

public static DateTime? GetFieldAsDateTime(int y, int m, int d, 
    int h, int mi, int s)
{
    DateTime result;
    var input = 
        string.Format("{0:000#}-{1:0#}-{2:0#}T{3:0#}:{4:0#}:{5:0#}", 
        y, m, d, h, mi, s);

    if (DateTime.TryParse(input, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 
        System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.RoundtripKind, out result))
    {
        return result;
    }

    return null;
}