Date/Time from DB

[=OTS=G-Man]

Hello, I am witting some software to interact with a mail order manager. Issue is they use a strange date/time format that they store as text in the DB, from what i guessed its YYYYMMDDHHMMSSNNN

right now im using this function to get it into C# as a standard date.

private static DateTime ProcessMwTime(string mwTime)
        {
            //Mailware Date Format
            //YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS.NNN
            //20090916114135766
            //2009/09/16 11:41:35.766

            DateTime thisDate = new DateTime(int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(0, 4)),
                                             int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(4, 2)),
                                             int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(6, 2)),
                                             int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(8, 2)),
                                             int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(10, 2)),
                                             int.Parse(mwTime.Substring(12, 2))
                                            );
            return thisDate;
        }

Now the question, is there a better way to do this. to me it looks lame to have to read it like that.

Thanks
Don

[sknake]

Your way is fine but you could use TryParseExact :

private void button4_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
     DateTime dt;
     if (DateTime.TryParseExact("20090916114135766", "yyyyMMddhhmmssfff", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US"), System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, out dt))
     {
       MessageBox.Show(dt.ToString());
     }
    }

[Geekitygeek]

Gah...beaten at the buzzer :p

I was about to post the same thing almost verbatim sknake.
Only difference was, i used

DateTime.ParseExact(date, "yyyyMMddHHmmssFFF", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);

note to self...must type quicker :)

[sknake]

That happens to me too. Usually DdoubleD is the one who beats me :P

[=OTS=G-Man]

Great, thanks for the help, I tried using sknake first, but it was having issues parsing 4 of the dates (out of 15) but the format from Ryshad fixed that.

Thanks again guys

[sknake]

:)

Please mark this thread as solved if you have found an answer to your question and good luck!

[Geekitygeek]

Just so you know for next time, the reason it failed on a couple was probably to do with the way the time was stored. sknakes format will work on times in 12-hour format (hh) mine will work with 24-hour format (HH).
"yyyyMMddhhmmssfff" "yyyyMMddHHmmssfff"

You can find a reference table showing the different components of the format string on msdn:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.datetimeformatinfo.aspx

And like sknake said, turn out the light when your done (thread solved) :)