Question

I’m reading text from a flat file in c# and need to test whether certain values are dates. They could be in either YYYYMMDD format or MM/DD/YY format. What is the simplest way to do this in .Net?

Answer 1

string[] formats = {"yyyyMMdd", "MM/dd/yy"}; var Result = DateTime.ParseExact(input, formats, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, DateTimeStyles.None); 

or

DateTime result; string[] formats = {"yyyyMMdd", "MM/dd/yy"}; DateTime.TryParseExact(input, formats, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out result); 

More info in the MSDN documentation on ParseExact and TryParseExact.