How to Validate a DateTime in C#?

Question

I doubt I am the only one who has come up with this solution, but if you have a better one please post it here. I simply want to leave this question here so I and others can search it later.

I needed to tell whether a valid date had been entered into a text box and this is the code that I came up with. I fire this when focus leaves the text box.

try
{
    DateTime.Parse(startDateTextBox.Text);
}
catch
{
    startDateTextBox.Text = DateTime.Today.ToShortDateString();
}

Answer 1

All the Answers are Quite great but if you want to use a single function ,this may work. It will work with other date format but wont work with this date eg:05/06/202 it will consider it as valid date but it isnt.

private bool validateTime(string dateInString)
{
    DateTime temp;
    if (DateTime.TryParse(dateInString, out temp))
    {
       return true;
    }
    return false;
}

Answer 2

One liner:

if (DateTime.TryParse(value, out _)) {//dostuff}

Answer 3

protected static bool CheckDate(DateTime date)
{
    if(new DateTime() == date)      
        return false;       
    else        
        return true;        
} 

Answer 4

You can also define the DateTime format for a specific CultureInfo

public static bool IsDateTime(string tempDate)
{
    DateTime fromDateValue;
    var formats = new[] { "MM/dd/yyyy", "dd/MM/yyyy h:mm:ss", "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm tt", "yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss" };
    return DateTime.TryParseExact(tempDate, formats, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, out fromDateValue);
}

Answer 5

DateTime.TryParse

This I believe is faster and it means you dont have to use ugly try/catches :)

e.g

DateTime temp;
if(DateTime.TryParse(startDateTextBox.Text, out temp))
{
  // Yay :)
}
else
{
  // Aww.. :(
}

Answer 6

Here's another variation of the solution that returns true if the string can be converted to a DateTime type, and false otherwise.

public static bool IsDateTime(string txtDate)
{
    DateTime tempDate;
    return DateTime.TryParse(txtDate, out tempDate);
}

Answer 7

DateTime temp;
try
{
    temp = Convert.ToDateTime(date);
    date = temp.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd");
}
catch 
{
    MessageBox.Show("Sorry The date not valid", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Stop,MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1,MessageBoxOptions .RightAlign);
    date = null;
}

Answer 8

DateTime temp;
try
{
    temp = Convert.ToDateTime(grd.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells["dateg"].Value);
    grd.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells["dateg"].Value = temp.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd");
}
catch 
{   
    MessageBox.Show("Sorry The date not valid", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Stop,MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1,MessageBoxOptions .RightAlign);
    grd.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells["dateg"].Value = null;
}

Answer 9

private void btnEnter_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    maskedTextBox1.Mask = "00/00/0000";
    maskedTextBox1.ValidatingType = typeof(System.DateTime);
    //if (!IsValidDOB(maskedTextBox1.Text)) 
    if (!ValidateBirthday(maskedTextBox1.Text))
        MessageBox.Show(" Not Valid");
    else
        MessageBox.Show("Valid");
}
// check date format dd/mm/yyyy. but not if year < 1 or > 2013.
public static bool IsValidDOB(string dob)
{ 
    DateTime temp;
    if (DateTime.TryParse(dob, out temp))
        return (true);
    else 
        return (false);
}
// checks date format dd/mm/yyyy and year > 1900!.
protected bool ValidateBirthday(String date)
{
    DateTime Temp;
    if (DateTime.TryParse(date, out Temp) == true &&
        Temp.Year > 1900 &&
       // Temp.Hour == 0 && Temp.Minute == 0 &&
        //Temp.Second == 0 && Temp.Millisecond == 0 &&
        Temp > DateTime.MinValue)
        return (true);
    else
        return (false);
}

Answer 10

    protected bool ValidateBirthday(String date)
    {
        DateTime Temp;

        if (DateTime.TryParse(date, out Temp) == true &&
      Temp.Hour == 0 &&
      Temp.Minute == 0 &&
      Temp.Second == 0 &&
      Temp.Millisecond == 0 &&
      Temp > DateTime.MinValue)
            return true;
        else
            return false;
    }

//suppose that input string is short date format.
e.g. "2013/7/5" returns true or
"2013/2/31" returns false.
http://forums.asp.net/t/1250332.aspx/1
//bool booleanValue = ValidateBirthday("12:55"); returns false

Answer 11

I would use the DateTime.TryParse() method: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.datetime.tryparse.aspx

Answer 12

A problem with using DateTime.TryParse is that it doesn't support the very common data-entry use case of dates entered without separators, e.g. 011508.

Here's an example of how to support this. (This is from a framework I'm building, so its signature is a little weird, but the core logic should be usable):

    private static readonly Regex ShortDate = new Regex(@"^\d{6}$");
    private static readonly Regex LongDate = new Regex(@"^\d{8}$");

    public object Parse(object value, out string message)
    {
        msg = null;
        string s = value.ToString().Trim();
        if (s.Trim() == "")
        {
            return null;
        }
        else
        {
            if (ShortDate.Match(s).Success)
            {
                s = s.Substring(0, 2) + "/" + s.Substring(2, 2) + "/" + s.Substring(4, 2);
            }
            if (LongDate.Match(s).Success)
            {
                s = s.Substring(0, 2) + "/" + s.Substring(2, 2) + "/" + s.Substring(4, 4);
            }
            DateTime d = DateTime.MinValue;
            if (DateTime.TryParse(s, out d))
            {
                return d;
            }
            else
            {
                message = String.Format("\"{0}\" is not a valid date.", s);
                return null;
            }
        }

    }

Answer 13

Don't use exceptions for flow control. Use DateTime.TryParse and DateTime.TryParseExact. Personally I prefer TryParseExact with a specific format, but I guess there are times when TryParse is better. Example use based on your original code:

DateTime value;
if (!DateTime.TryParse(startDateTextBox.Text, out value))
{
    startDateTextox.Text = DateTime.Today.ToShortDateString();
}

Reasons for preferring this approach:

• Clearer code (it says what it wants to do)
• Better performance than catching and swallowing exceptions
• This doesn't catch exceptions inappropriately - e.g. OutOfMemoryException, ThreadInterruptedException. (Your current code could be fixed to avoid this by just catching the relevant exception, but using TryParse would still be better.)

Answer 14

What about using TryParse?