Inverse function of FormatDateTime

Question

I am looking for a function to reverse any string (YYYYMDD,YY/MM/DD,YYMMDD,...) created by the function FormatDateTime to

Answer 1

Without using any external library, you can do something like:

function AnyStringToDate(fmt, dt: String) : TDateTime;
var
  fs : TFormatSettings;
Begin
  fs := TFormatSettings.Create;
  fs.ShortDateFormat := fmt;

  result := StrToDateDef(dt, 0, fs);
End;

and then use it like:

  mydate := AnyStringToDate('YYYY-MM-DD', '2015-01-20');

I havent compiled this, but the idea simple.