DateTime.TryParse适用于任何文化

Question

There are lots of thread for this , but I am still blocked at the following:

What I have:

I am trying to build windows phone App which will pick Date of Birth of an individual

Code Behind:

string dateString = "";

  DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
     if (value != null && DateTime.TryParse(value.ToString(),  culture, DateTimeStyles.None, out dt))
  {
    if (dt.Equals(DateTime.MinValue))
    {
      //dateString = "mm/dd/yyyy";
      return "";
    }
    else
      return dt.ToShortDateString();
  }
  else
    return dateString;
}

what I need:

I want it to parse any date format which should be culture Independent.

What I tried:

1.I tried using CultureInfo.InvariantCultute, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture

2.Tried using ExactParser as follows:

string[] formats = {"M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss tt", "M/d/yyyy h:mm tt", "d/M/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt", "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt", "d/M/yyyy" , "dd/MM/yyyy" , "M/d/yyyy" ,"MM/dd/yyyy", 
               "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss", "M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss",   "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss", "d/M/yyyy h:mm:ss",
               "M/d/yyyy hh:mm tt", "M/d/yyyy hh tt",  "d/M/yyyy hh:mm tt", "d/M/yyyy hh tt",
               "M/d/yyyy h:mm", "M/d/yyyy h:mm", "d/M/yyyy h:mm", "d/M/yyyy h:mm",
               "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm", "M/dd/yyyy hh:mm","dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm", "dd/M/yyyy hh:mm"};


 if (value != null && DateTime.TryParseExact(value.ToString(), format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out dt))

but that is too hardcoded and will not cover several cases.

Is there any way to pick DOB in any format?

Any help would be Appreciated. Thanks!!

Answer 1

Not really, because everyone has their own date formatting.

What you're basically trying to do is magically deduce the dates from the second half of the above XKCD comic . ;)

That said, the only way you could TRY and do this, is to parse a string with every format you think it might be, and then make a sanity check in every case where a parse was successful. Said sanity check would be difficult however... Does 11-02 mean February 11th or November 2nd? You'd require some sort of context.

Answer 2

Sorry, but it seems impossible, since datetime could be ambiguous , and that's why misinterpreted eg

"01/02/03" is

01 Feb 2003 (Russia)

02 Jan 2003 (USA)

03 Feb 2001 (China)

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

Answer 3

This will try all culture:

public static bool TryParseAnyDate(string dateValue, out DateTime result)
{
  result = DateTime.MinValue;
  foreach (CultureInfo cultureInfo in CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures))
  {
    if (DateTime.TryParse(dateValue, cultureInfo, DateTimeStyles.None, out result))
    {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}