Executing DateTime.Parse on a tuple in C#

Question

Is there a way to execute DateTime.Parse on a tuple in C#.

I am using Specflow and part of the tests I am executing involve testing a list of DateTime tuples (e.g. List<(DateTime, DateTime)>). In this step I am taking in a string, parsing it into a list of strings, where each string represents a DateTime pair separated by =.

The plan was to create a tuple store the value by splitting the string, creating a string tuple, then parsing that tuple using DateTime.Parse.

This doesn't work, giving me a CS1503 error (Argument n: cannot convert from 'type x' to 'type y'), and I cannot find any other information online about using DateTime.Parse on tuples. Is there another way of changing these values into DateTime?

Below is an extract of my code for reference:

public class TimeModeServiceStepDefinitions
{
    List<(DateTime, DateTime)> expectedResult = new List<(DateTime, DateTime)>();

    [Given(@"I have the following list of expected results: '([^']*)'")]
    public void GivenIHaveTheFollowingListOfExpectedResults(string p0)
    {
        List<string> tuples = p0.Split('|').ToList();
        foreach (var tuple in tuples)
        {
            var timeTuple = (first: "first", second: "second");
            timeTuple = tuple.Split('=') switch { var a => (a[0], a[1]) };
            expectedResult.Add(DateTime.Parse(timeTuple));
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

DateTime.Parse accepts a string supposed to contain one date/time. So, we can simply write:

string[] a = tupleString.Split('=');
var timeTuple = (first: DateTime.Parse(a[0]), second: DateTime.Parse(a[1]));

where timeTuple is of type (DateTime first, DateTime second).

var timeTuple = (first: "first", second: "second"); is a strange way of declaring a tuple variable. C# does not only have a tuple syntax for tuple values but also for tuple types:

(DateTime first, DateTime second) namedTuple;
(DateTime, DateTime) unnamedTuple; // With elements named Item1, Item2