How to create a .NET DateTime from ISO 8601 format
Although MSDN says that "s" and "o" formats reflect the standard, they seem to be able to parse only a limited subset of it. Especially it is a problem if the string contains time zone specification. (Neither it does for basic ISO8601 formats, or reduced precision formats - however this is not exactly your case.) That is why I make use of custom format strings when it comes to parsing ISO8601. Currently my preferred snippet is:
static readonly string[] formats = {
// Basic formats
"yyyyMMddTHHmmsszzz",
"yyyyMMddTHHmmsszz",
"yyyyMMddTHHmmssZ",
// Extended formats
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ",
// All of the above with reduced accuracy
"yyyyMMddTHHmmzzz",
"yyyyMMddTHHmmzz",
"yyyyMMddTHHmmZ",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mmzzz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mmzz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mmZ",
// Accuracy reduced to hours
"yyyyMMddTHHzzz",
"yyyyMMddTHHzz",
"yyyyMMddTHHZ",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHHzzz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHHzz",
"yyyy-MM-ddTHHZ"
};
public static DateTime ParseISO8601String ( string str )
{
return DateTime.ParseExact ( str, formats,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None );
}
If you don't mind parsing TZ-less strings (I do), you can add an "s" line to greatly extend the number of covered format alterations.
Here is one that works better for me (LINQPad version):
DateTime d;
DateTime.TryParseExact(
"2010-08-20T15:00:00Z",
@"yyyy-MM-dd\THH:mm:ss\Z",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal,
out d);
d.ToString()
produces
true
8/20/2010 8:00:00 AM
This solution makes use of the DateTimeStyles enumeration, and it also works with Z.
DateTime d2 = DateTime.Parse("2010-08-20T15:00:00Z", null, System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.RoundtripKind);
This prints the solution perfectly.
using System.Globalization;
DateTime d;
DateTime.TryParseExact(
"2010-08-20T15:00:00",
"s",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal, out d);