Question

why does this not work?

DateTime.TryParseExact(text, "H", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces, out value);

I want to parse an Time value only providing the hour part, but it throws a FormatException.

On the other hand, this works:

DateTime.TryParseExact(text, "HH", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces, out value)

Anybody knows the cause?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Okay, I had to look this one up – it seems like it should be working, but it does not because the custom format string is not valid. A custom format string needs to be at least two characters wide – see:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx#UsingSingleSpecifiers

So, according to the documentation, you can fix this by using this code:

DateTime.TryParseExact(text, "%H", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces, out value);