Validate a date string in C#

This post will discuss how to validate a date string in C#.

The DateTime.TryParseExact() method is the recommended approach to convert the string representation of a date and time to its DateTime equivalent. It returns a boolean value indicating whether the specified string is converted successfully or not.

The following sample illustrates the simple use of the TryParseExact() method.

using System;

using System.Globalization;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

string dateString = "06/24/2018 10:00:00 AM -05:00";

CultureInfo enUS = new CultureInfo("en-US");

DateTime dateValue;

if (DateTime.TryParseExact(dateString, "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt zzz",

enUS,

DateTimeStyles.None,

out dateValue)) {

Console.WriteLine("Converted '{0}' to {1} ({2}).",

dateString, dateValue, dateValue.Kind);

}

else {

Console.WriteLine("'{0}' is not a date or is in invalid format.", dateString);

}

Download Run Code

Output:

Converted ’06/24/2018 10:00:00 AM -05:00′ to 24-06-2018 08:30:00 PM (Local).

To parse a string representing UTC, you can use the round-trip (O, o) format specifier.

using System;

using System.Globalization;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

string dateString = "2018-06-24T10:00:00.0805924Z";

DateTime dateValue;

if (DateTime.TryParseExact(dateString, "o",

CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,

DateTimeStyles.RoundtripKind,

out dateValue)) {

Console.WriteLine("Converted '{0}' to {1} ({2}).",

dateString, dateValue, dateValue.Kind);

}

else {

Console.WriteLine("'{0}' is not in an acceptable format.", dateString);

}

Download Run Code

Output:

Converted ‘2018-06-24T10:00:00.0805924Z’ to 24-06-2018 10:00:00 AM (Utc).

That’s all about validating a date string in C#.