C# : How to convert string to DateTime, where the string can have any of the standard datetime format

Question

I had posted a question on DateTime to String conversion, I got many satisfying answers for that .. so I thank StackOverflow very much ..
Here is one more problem of String

Answer 1

You can use the DateTime.ParseExact overload that takes a list of formats:

private static string[] formats = new string[]
    {
        "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss tt",
        "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss",
        "M/dd/yyyy H:mm:ss tt",
        "M/dd/yyyy H:mm:ss"        
    };

private static DateTime ParseDate(string input)
{
    return DateTime.ParseExact(input, formats, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
}

This will throw a FormatException if the passed string does not match any of the given formats. Notice that the formats expecting AM/PM should appear before identical formats without AM/PM ("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss tt" comes before "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss").

Update
As Henk points out in the comments, the same functionality is available when using TryParseExact which removes exception situation. Also, paired with nullable types this can be made a bit cleaner:

private static DateTime? ParseDate(string input)
{
    DateTime result;
    if (DateTime.TryParseExact(input, formats, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out result))
    {
        return result;
    }
    return null;
}

Now it will simply return a null reference if it fails to parse the input.