CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netdatetime
Jane.L
Jane.L

Reputation: 433

DateTime.TryParseExact's result has DateTimeKind.Unspecified despite the input date time string contains timezone information

string dateTimeStr = "2020-01-02T04:00:00Z";
string[] formats = { "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'", "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.fff'Z'" };

if (DateTime.TryParseExact(dateTimeStr, formats,
                        null,
                        DateTimeStyles.None,
                        out DateTime dateValue))
{
    Console.WriteLine(dateValue.Kind); // why set to DateTimeKind.Unspecified here?
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine(dateValue);
}

By this documentation:

If s contains time zone information, the time is converted to local time, if necessary, and the Kind property of the returned DateTime object is set to DateTimeKind.Local.

However, in the commented line, the dateValue's Kind field is set to DateTimeKind.Unspecified, despite the tailing 'Z' in the dateTimeStr to specify its timezone as Utc.

I don't know how it happens and my goad is to have the output DateTime has its Kind set to DateTimeKind.Utc. How could I achieve that?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 572

Answers (1)

GSerg
GSerg

Reputation: 78183

'Z' is just an escaped literal letter Z that does not mean anything (same for the 'T'). The time zone specifier in the format string is K.

string[] formats = { "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssK", "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffK" };

This will give you DateTimeKind.Local like documented, and then you call .ToUniversalTime() on the result to get to the UTC.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions