CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#parsingdatetimerss
Daarwin
Daarwin

Reputation: 3014

Parse RSS pubdate to DateTime

I get this date string from an RSS:

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 17:57:15 +0100

I need to parse into a DateTime. Ive googled and searched stack overflow and gotten to the following answer (ive tried with only one, two and four 'z' instead of three)

string parseFormat = "ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz";
DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, parseFormat,
                                    DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo,
                                    DateTimeStyles.None);

But I get this error:

System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 4751

Answers (2)

Soner Gönül
Soner Gönül

Reputation: 98750

As commented, your format and string matches unless if your CurrentCulture is english-based one. If it is not, it can't parse these Wed and Dec parts successfully.

On the other hand, zzz format specifier does not recommended for DateTime parsing.

From documentation;

With DateTime values, the "zzz" custom format specifier represents the signed offset of the local operating system's time zone from UTC, measured in hours and minutes. It does not reflect the value of an instance's DateTime.Kind property. For this reason, the "zzz" format specifier is not recommended for use with DateTime values.

However, I would parse it to DateTimeOffset instead of DateTime since you have an UTC Offset in your string like;

var dateString = "Wed, 16 Dec 2015 17:57:15 +0100";
string parseFormat = "ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz";
DateTimeOffset dto = DateTimeOffset.ParseExact(dateString, parseFormat,
                                               CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                                               DateTimeStyles.None);

Now, you have a DateTimeOffset as {16.12.2015 17:57:15 +01:00} which as +01:00 Offset part.

enter image description here

Upvotes: 1

Lewis Hai
Lewis Hai

Reputation: 1214

Change your code to

  string parseFormat = "ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz";
  DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, parseFormat,
                                            CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Hope it helps!

Upvotes: 8

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