DateTime format converting

[Soteric]

Hello. I have a DateTime in this format "MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss". What I need is to make it like this "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss". According to manual I'm trying first to make my datetime to string and then, using ParseExact method, convert it back to DateTime. So it looks like:

DateTime dt = another_datetime_that_was_assigned_before;
string format = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss";
string dt_string = dt.ToString(format);
DateTime converted_dt = DateTime.ParseExact(dt_string, format, null); // there could be a CultureInfo instead of "null" but I can't figure out how it affects and if I need it at all

As a result I get:
dt_string = "2006-11-04 15:00:00" // That's actually what I need
converted_dt = "04-11-2006 15:00:00" // Like my "another_datetime_ ... "

I've also tried to use any cultures instead of null (like "en-US", "ru-RU") but failed. Now I'm completely lost and can't get where my mistake is. Thanks for your help.

[arul]

You do format only the input, not the output.

Try this:

 Console.WriteLine( dt.ToString( "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" ) );

[Soteric]

After converting it will be sent to SQL database, so I need it to be DateTime, not string. Output it on console isn't my aim.

[noobie]

You cant have DateTime in different formats.

Send it in String format (yyyy-MM-dd...) to SQL and it will do the rest for you..

[Soteric]

That works, thanks a lot I didn't know SQL would do this part of job for me )

[arul]

Originally Posted by Soteric

After converting it will be sent to SQL database, so I need it to be DateTime, not string. Output it on console isn't my aim.

Well, DateTime does not work the way you think.

In fact, DateTime is stored as a number ( meaning the number of ticks passed since the beginning of the epoch ), the input format is used only to calculate how many ticks to add.

The output to the console was only an example, how to produce a formatted string.

[Soteric]

You are right. I thought DateTime worked completely another way. Thank you for explanation.