Convert string to DateTime Format - wrong format

Question

I really cannot make sense of why this does not want to work. I get an exception:

String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

I am reading the string date from a file and looks like this 2/27/2014 10:10:55

This method receives the filename and extrapolates the data I need (latitude, longitude, date)

public void ReadCsvFile(string filename)
{
    var reader = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead(filename));
    gpsDataList = new List<GpsFileClass>();
    while(!reader.EndOfStream){
        var line = reader.ReadLine();
        var values = line.Split(',');
        if(values[2].Contains("A")){
            values[2] = values[2].Substring(0,values[2].IndexOf("A"));
            values[2].Replace("\"", "");
            values[2] = values[2].Trim(); 
        }

        if(values[2].Contains("P")){
            values[2] = values[2].Substring(0, values[2].IndexOf("P"));
            values[2].Replace("\"", "");
            values[2] = values[2].Trim(); 
        }
        gpsDataList.Add(new GpsFileClass(Convert.ToDouble(values[0]), Convert.ToDouble(values[1]), Convert.ToString(values[2])));
    }
}

Once the I have the file data in a List<> I want to do some date comparisons and calculations. But first; I try to convert the string data containing date information to datetime like this:

public void SaveFrameGpsCoordinate()
{
    int listSize = gpsDataList.Count;

    DateTimeFormatInfo dateTimeFormatInfo = new DateTimeFormatInfo();
    dateTimeFormatInfo.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss";
    dateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator = "/";

    //DateTime tempDateA = DateTime.ParseExact(gpsDataList[0].timeCaptured, "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss",null);
    //DateTime tempDateB = DateTime.ParseExact(gpsDataList[lastRecordData].timeCaptured, "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss", null);

    DateTime tempDateA = Convert.ToDateTime(gpsDataList[0].timeCaptured.Replace("\"", ""), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("hi-IN").DateTimeFormat);
    DateTime tempDateB = Convert.ToDateTime(gpsDataList[lastRecordData].timeCaptured.Replace("\"", ""), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("hi-IN").DateTimeFormat);
}

As you can see even ParseExact throws the same exception, I tried it (hence commented it out).

There are a lot solutions for this kind of problem but non seem to work on mine. I get that DateTime by default uses en-US calture. But When I even when I change the culture to "af-ZA" I get the same exception.

Please help.

Answer 1

I don't believe it; The variable that holds the size of the List<> was going out of range (check line 3 of code below) but for some reason it did not throw an "out of range exception".

public void SaveFrameGpsCoordinate()
{
    int listSize = gpsDataList.Count - 1;

    DateTimeFormatInfo dateTimeFormatInfo = new DateTimeFormatInfo();
    dateTimeFormatInfo.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss";
    dateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator = "/";

    //DateTime tempDateA = DateTime.ParseExact(gpsDataList[0].timeCaptured, "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss",null);
    //DateTime tempDateB = DateTime.ParseExact(gpsDataList[lastRecordData].timeCaptured, "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss", null);

    DateTime tempDateA = Convert.ToDateTime(gpsDataList[0].timeCaptured.Replace("\"", ""), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("hi-IN").DateTimeFormat);
    DateTime tempDateB = Convert.ToDateTime(gpsDataList[lastRecordData].timeCaptured.Replace("\"", ""), System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("hi-IN").DateTimeFormat);
}

Answer 2

You can use the ParseExact method

var dateTime = DateTime.ParseExact("2/27/2014 10:10:55", 
                   "M/d/yyyy h:m:s", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Answer 3

'dd' expects a 2 digit date. You probably want to use 'd' instead. Similarly 'MM' expects a 2 digit month - again you probably want to use 'M' instead.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4(v=vs.110).aspx