Convert mm/dd/yyyy to yyyymmdd (VB.NET)

Question

Is there any way I can convert a date of format: dd/mm/yyyy to yyyymmdd format? For example from : 25/07/2011 to 20110725? in VB.NET?

Answer 1

Dates themselves don't have formats inherently. You can parse a string into a DateTime by parsing it with dd/MM/yyyy format and then convert that into a string using yyyyMMdd format:

DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(text, "dd/MM/yyyy",
                                    CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

string reformatted = date.ToString("yyyyMMdd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Or in VB:

Dim date as DateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(text, "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
Dim reformatted as String = date.ToString("yyyyMMdd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

(And make sure you have an import for System.Globalization.)

However, ideally you should keep it as a DateTime (or similar) for as long as possible.