Question

I would like to easily validate dates in this format and only this format. Any otehr format should be considered invalid.

Answer 1

You use DateTime.ParseExact or DateTime.TryParseExact. You pass through the exact format string.

In your case the format string would be d-MMM-yyyy (see here) and can be used as follows:

string dateString = "31-JUL-2010";
string format = "d-MMM-yyyy";
DateTime result = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);