Resolving Date Parsing Issues with Selenium and C#

Описание: Discover how to successfully parse dates from `IWebElement` in `C# ` using `Selenium`, ensuring the correct format and UTC handling.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/71172968/ asked by the user 'Paweluk' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9205975/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/71179711/ provided by the user 'Paweluk' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9205975/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: How to parse text with UTC from IWebElement into date. Selenium and C#

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
Resolving Date Parsing Issues with Selenium and C# : A Step-by-Step Guide

When working with web automation tools like Selenium, you may encounter the challenge of parsing dates from a web page. This is particularly true when dealing with a format that includes UTC time zones. In this guide, we will address a commonly faced issue: how to parse a string from an IWebElement containing a date in the format dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss UTC into a DateTime object in C# .

The Problem

Imagine you retrieve a date string from a webpage using Selenium. The date looks something like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Your goal is to parse this string correctly into a DateTime object while retaining its UTC properties. If you've attempted this and received an output like {1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM}, you're not alone! This issue arises from incorrect parsing formats.

Solution Overview

To solve this problem, we will do the following:

Extract the date string from the IWebElement.

Use the DateTime.ParseExact method with the correct format to parse the date string.

Convert the parsed date to UTC.

Let’s dive deeper into each of these steps.

Step 1: Extracting the Date String

First, you need to extract the date string from the webpage. Here is how you can do that using Selenium:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

With the above code, you should have dateOfAction containing the string 14.02.2022 09:46:12 UTC.

Step 2: Parsing the Date String

Next, you need to parse the extracted string into a DateTime object. Ensure you utilize the correct format string for parsing. Since your date format is dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss UTC, use this format in the ParseExact method:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

"dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss 'UTC'": This format string specifically matches your input date format. Notice how we included UTC as a literal.

ToUniversalTime(): This converts the parsed DateTime to UTC time zone.

Step 3: Verifying the Result

After the parsing, the variable actionDate should be correctly initialized. You can verify its value is as expected:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Conclusion

By applying the outlined steps, you can effectively parse UTC-formatted date strings obtained from IWebElement in C# using Selenium. Remember to always ensure your date format string matches the format of the date you're trying to parse. This approach will save you from common pitfalls and help maintain the integrity of date information in your applications.

If you have further questions or need assistance, feel free to reach out in the comments below!