System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime - when trying to convert MM/DD/YYYY

Question

I have following C# method:

DateTime ConvertStringToDate(string dateInString)
{
    try {
        //string SSD = dateInString;
        //DateTime date = Convert.ToDateTime(SSD);
        //string strDate = String.Format("{0:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff}", date);
        //return Convert.ToDateTime(strDate);
    
        return DateTime.ParseExact(dateInString, "MM/dd/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    }
    catch (Exception) { }
        return DateTime.Today;
    } 
}

The code in comment is another way I tried before.

I am in India and developing an ASP.NET WebForms application for my client in US. On one of its forms my client will enter the date in TextBox like 6/20/2018 which is MM/dd/yyyy format.

But, in both the ways I am getting this error:

System.FormatException: 'String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.'

Answer 1

return DateTime.ParseExact(dateInString, "M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Check it here

The difference between my answer and Fabulous' one is that I also shortened dd to d so if your user writes 6/6/2018 it will work too