C# CSV Parse DateTime Field

In this example, we are going to parse a CSV file that contains a dates, times and datetimes using CsvHelper library. Suppose we have the following CSV to parse:

NAME,DATE,TIME,DATETIME
ES1 Index,01/01/2023,11:00,2023-01-01 11:00+01:00
...

Parsing date and time fields does not require any custom parsers, all we need is to add proper format annotations to our record data holder:

public readonly record struct CsvRecord {

    [Name("NAME")]
    public readonly string Name { get; init; }

    [Name("DATE")]
    [Format("MM/dd/yyyy")]
    public DateOnly CsvDate { get; init; }

    [Name("TIME")]
    [Format("HH:mm")]
    public TimeOnly CsvTime { get; init; }

    [Name("DATETIME")]
    [Format("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:sszzz")]
    public DateTimeOffset CsvDateTime { get; init; }

}

With CsvHelper, we can use any date-like types: DateOnly, TimeOnly, DateTime and DateTimeOffset. For a detailed list of format specifications, refer to the Microsoft documentation: Custom date and time format strings.