Convert MM dd yyyy to unix timestamp

Question

Hello guys i am trying to convert the date to UNIX timestamp but i get an error while converting it with some specific dates

string         zoho_meeting_start_date_time = result.Value<JObject>()["Start_DateTime"].Value<String>();
DateTimeOffset dateTimeOffSet               = DateTimeOffset.Parse(zoho_meeting_start_date_time);

zoho_meeting_start_date_time_timestamp = dateTimeOffSet
    .ToUnixTimeMilliseconds()
    .ToString();

• When I have the date for example : "08/01/2022 17:00:00" it gets converted perfectly fine to 1641657600000.

• When I get the date "07/28/2022 16:00:00" I get this error:

  System.FormatException: String '07/28/2022 16:00:00' was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

Answer 1

That's because 1641657600000 is Saturday 8th January 2022 and the date string is being interpreted as dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss. Now when you try it with 07/28/2022, 28 is an invalid value for month and the error is thrown.

What you need to do is use DateTimeOffset.ParseExact and specify explicitly the format MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss as this is not the default.

DateTimeOffset.ParseExact(zoho_meeting_start_date_time, "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss", null);