Convert DateTime with TypeDescriptor.GetConverter.ConvertFromString (using custom format)

Is there any way to make

TypeDescriptor.GetConverter.ConvertFromString convert to DateTime using a custom format e.g. "2011-04-21 13-03-56"?

If not, is there any DateTime-format out there that can be applied to a folder name (/,\,:,etc. are not allowed as you know)?

Help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance Random-I-Am

Edit:

Since my request still seems to not be understood correctly I am again trying to elaborate on my question. My users are creating fold开发者_JAVA技巧ers with specific names. For example "1000_Link_Topic1_2011-01-25 14-12-10". They are free to combine their information as they like and omit information where needed. They don't even have to care about case sensitivity. So I could face another folder named "1000_link_Topic2".

What I have is a single class with a single property for each possible fragment of information. In this case I would have (Since I had to find a way of checking each properties default value regardless of the property type I am using nullable types):

Short? short_val;
EContentType? enum_val;
String string_val;
DateTime? datetime_val;

My code obviously splits the folder name at "_" and then tells for each fragment to which of the above property types it belongs. As soon as I know the corresponding type I am trying to convert to the Type, lets say t, using TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(t).ConvertFromString(info_frag[i]). I hope you now understand why I cannot use another conversion Method.

The code works for all the types mentioned above. My problem is to find a custom DateTime format that can be used on a folder name. All of the formats I know are using colons to separate hours from minutes and seconds.

What I want is a way to convert from a custom DateTime-format to a DateTime-object using TypeDescriptor.GetConverter.ConvertFromString. If that is not possible I either need to find a standard DateTime-format which can be assigned as a folder name without any further conversion or somehow extend the built-in DateTime-formats by my custom format. If it is going to be the latter I do not care about being able to use seconds or minutes. Hours will do the job.

Thanks again for being as patient as you are and helping me out with this one. Feel free to ask as many further questions as you like. I hope you can help me getting this one to work.

Random-I-Am

I have looked into your problem a little and found that the standard DateTimeTypeConverter uses DateTime.Parse internally which doesn't listen to CurrentCulture info at all. Instead you can trick the conversion process with your own TypeConverter!

I do not know how to attach the new typeconverter to the existing DateTime structure, if you even can, so I made a miniture AdvancedDateTime structure .. which is empty. Noone said your custom TypeConvert should even return such a thing! This one returns a regular DateTime. I provided the code below:

public class CustomDateTimeTypeConverter : TypeConverter
{
    public override object ConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, CultureInfo culture, object value)
    {
        return DateTime.ParseExact(value.ToString(), "yyyy-MM-dd HH-mm-ss", culture);
    }
}

[TypeConverter(typeof(CustomDateTimeTypeConverter))]
struct AdvancedDateTime
{
}

[TestFixture]
public class DateTime
{
    [Test]
    public void TypeConvert_StrangeFormat_ConvertsWithoutProblem()
    {
        string datetime = "2011-04-21 23-12-13";
        TypeConverter converter = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter( typeof (AdvancedDateTime) );
        var convertedFromString = converter.ConvertFromString(datetime);
        Assert.AreEqual(new DateTime(2011,4,21, 23,12,13), convertedFromString);
    }
}

Try this

 string m_strDate = DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
 m_strDate = m_strDate.Replace("/", "");

Append this m_strDate to your folder

A sample i used for text file is as follows

strPath += "/FileHeader_" + m_strDate + ".txt";

Check this sample

DateTime dt=new DateTime(1990,5,6);
Console.WriteLine(TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(dt).ConvertTo(dt, typeof(string)));
string myStr="1991-10-10";
Console.WriteLine(TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(dt).ConvertFrom(myStr));

The sample code i written just to display as per you need try as per your requirement

       string s = "Folder";
        DateTime dt = new DateTime(1990, 5, 6);
        string str = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(dt).ConvertTo(dt, typeof(string)).ToString();
        string myStr = "1991-10-10";
        string str1 = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(dt).ConvertFrom(myStr).ToString();
        s = s + str1.Replace("/", "").Replace(":", "");
        textBox1.Text = s;