c# - How to convert datetime string in format MMMdyyyyhhmmtt to datetime object?

Question

I have tried like below:

DateTime.ParseExact("Feb520161000PM", 
"MMMdyyyyhhmmtt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

But it's giving FormatException.

Interestingly

DateTime.ParseExact(DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMdyyyyhhmmtt"), "MMMdyyyyhhmmtt", 
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

This is also giving format exception.

Answer 1

The format is not parseable with regular parsing which work from left to right - you need custom code that parses value from right to left instead as you want leftmost number to be variable width ("Feb111111111PM").

If possible - change format to one with fixed width fields (preferably ISO8601). Otherwise split string manually and construct date from resulting parts (time part would work fine by itself, so just need to manually parse date part).

Some other approaches and info can be found in similar post about time - DateTime.ParseExact - how to parse single- and double-digit hours with same format string?