[RESOLVED] [2.0] Convert String to DateTime

[wileyj]

I have a string with the month and year, separated by a "/". I need to convert this to a DateTime, but then convert it back to a string (don't ask, it's how the original developer made it). I have seen several examples on how to convert strings to DateTime, but none would work in this instance.

String date = "11/10";
DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(date);

String result = dt.Month + "/" + dt.Year

This would return "11/08", I guess it thinks the 10 is the day instead of the year. How can I get this to work in my instance?

[MetalKid]

A date requires a year, month, and day. If you don't have all 3 parts, you can't make a date. I guess you could always just hard-code 1 in for the day:

String date = "11/10".Replace("/", "/1/");
DateTime dt = DateTime.Parse(date);
result = string.Format("{0}/{1}", dt.Month, dt.Year);

[wileyj]

Yes, that does work. Thank you.

[jmcilhinney]

This would be the "proper" way:

string s = "11/10";
DateTime d;
 
if (DateTime.TryParseExact(s,
                           "MM/yy",
                           null,
                           System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None,
                           out d))
 
{
    MessageBox.Show(d.ToShortDateString());
}
else
{
    MessageBox.Show("Invalid date string.");
}

If you want to you can call ToString instead of ToShortDateString and pass any format string you like, e.g.

MessageBox.Show(d.ToString("MM/yy"));

Note also that you should only use "MM/yy" if all single digit months are required to be padded with a leading zero. If they don't then you should use "M/yy", which will work for single or double digit months.