Resolved [2005] Just can't get a string to format

[VBGuy]

I have a 'date' string value of "19561206" which is 12/06/1956 but for the life of me I can't get a format/converter that will convert this to a ShortDateString. I would also gladly settle to just format the string as it is to "12/06/1956" ( I can do that very manually but looking for a better way).

Does anyone have a slick way to do this?

Edit:
Thanks for the input... we landed up simply formatting the string to "1956-12-06" then crunching it through DateTime.TryParse().ToShortDateString() and that worked just fine. Sloppy but meets the needs for now.

[MetalKid]

If the "date" is only in a string object, then there is really no slick way of doing it... Unless you can read it into a new Date... But I'm sure that isn't working for you.

[axion_sa]

Named groups in regular expressions would solve this problem. Assuming the input is yyyyMMdd, and output is MM/dd/yyyy:

string input = "19561206";
string output = Regex.Replace(input,
	@"(?<year>\d{4})(?<month>\d{2})(?<day>\d{2})",
	"${month}/${day}/${year}");

[stanav]

You can also use String.Substring to parse out different parts of the date and the reconstruct it to a dateTime object. Since you know the format of the date string, it wouldn't be too hard.

[axion_sa]

You can also use String.Substring to parse out different parts of the date and the reconstruct it to a dateTime object. Since you know the format of the date string, it wouldn't be too hard.

Or, we could use framework provided DateTime.ParseExact method

string input = "19561221";
DateTime stringParsed = new DateTime(int.Parse(input.Substring(0, 4)),
	int.Parse(input.Substring(4, 2)),
	int.Parse(input.Substring(6, 2)));
Console.WriteLine(stringParsed.ToLongDateString());

DateTime exactParse = DateTime.ParseExact(input,
	"yyyyMMdd",
	Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat,
	DateTimeStyles.AssumeLocal);
Console.WriteLine(exactParse.ToLongDateString());

string directToFormat = Regex.Replace(input,
	@"(?<year>\d{4})(?<month>\d{2})(?<day>\d{2})",
	"${month}/${day}/${year}");

Console.WriteLine(directToFormat);