How to change DateTime format into another C#

Question

I want to know how to change a DateTime format into another. I mean, I get a value in string that it will represent a DateTime value added into Typed DataTable, but I got an error at the moment of adding the DataRow

dr[i] = value;
dt.Rows.Add(dr);

The column for that field was set like this.

DataColumn dc = new DataColumn("CreateDate", typeof(System.DateTime));
dt.Columns.Add(dc);

So, I'm receiving this value "30-01-1984" and crash!!! so. Imagine that I defined now 2 datetime formats. I want to configure this format for telling to my app that I'm gonna receive this format "MM-dd-yyyy" and change it to this format "yyyy-MM-dd". So I want to parse my string value into the first format and then verify if I can change it into the new format.

Thanks

Answer 1

Since you are getting a formatted string with DateTime value, you have to parse it in .Net DateTime type object, using DateTime.Parse or DateTime.ParseExact, (or DateTime.TryParse variants) like:

string yourStringDate = "30-01-1984";
DateTime dateTimeObj = DateTime.ParseExact(yourStringDate, 
                                  "d-M-yyyy", 
                                   CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));

(I have used single d and M which would work for both single digit Day and Month)

Later add that in your DataTable. like:

DataRow dr = dt.NewRow();
dr["CreateDate"] = dateTimeObj;

I am not sure how you are getting back the date as string, If you are storing DateTime as string in Database, then its better to use DateTime type provided by database, instead of keeping dates as string.