Error : String was not recognized as a valid DateTime while converting to date format in c#

Question

Here is the date time format i'm trying to format.I'm getting this date format from twitter apis

string date = "Thu Jul 18 17:39:53 +0000 2013"

i tried

Convert.ToDateTime(date).ToString("dd/MM/yyyy")

But it says String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

Solution 1

This works:

DateTime.ParseExact(dtStr, "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzzz yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

ParseExact and TryParseExact allows to use a custom format string. ddd is the abbreviated day name, MMM the abbreviated month name, dd the day number, HH hours in 24h clock format, mm minutes, ss seconds, zzzz the time-zone and yyyy the years.

I have used CultureInfo.InvariantCulture to specify that the current culture is not used but InvariantCulture which is similar to "en-US".

Demo

works but after getting date from your line of code i tried to do date.ToString("dd/mm/yyyy") but get the string as 12-12-2013, no slashes

/ is a replacement character for your current culture's date-separator which is obviously -. So also use CultureInfo.InvariantCulture to specify that the separator should be used without using your current culture:

string result = dateTime.ToString("dd/mm/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

See: The "/" Custom Format Specifier

Solution 2

Try this

  DateTime.ParseExact(YourDate, "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss KKKK yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

Its better to use Invariant culture than Current culture

Solution 3

You are trying to convert a non-standard format, so use this:

string dateStr = "Thu Jul 18 17:39:53 +0000 2013";
DateTime date =  DateTime.ParseExact(dateStr, "ddd MMM dd h:mm:ss KKKK yyyy", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Or build the correct format for your input.