String to Date Conversion

PowerShell Help
1

I have captured “4/21/2015 9:56:44 AM” from a text file and stored it in a string variable ($myContent).
I now want to convert this into DateTime data type. Here is my code

[string]$myContent = Get-Content C:\MyFile.txt
[datetime]::ParseExact($myContent,”MM/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss”,$null) #This throws an error “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime”#

Can someone help me understand what is going wrong and suggest some solution here?

Thanks.

2

Have you tried just…

[datetime]$mydate = $string

And see if the parser can figure it out without you specifying the format?

3

Hi Don, I tried the way you mentioned. Hope what you mentioned is as how it is in Line 4 (correct me if I am wrong.)

Line 1. [datetime]$whichDate = Read-Host “Enter date in MM/DD/YYYY format”
Line 2. [datetime]$myDate = ($whichDate).AddDays(-1)
Line 3. $myContent = Get-EventLog -LogName System -Message “Kernel-Boot” -After $myDate -Newest 1 -OutVariable Var |select TimeGenerated |ft -HideTableHeaders
Line 4. [datetime]$myTime = $myContent

Below is the error PS throws:

Cannot convert the “System.Object” value of type “System.Object” to type “System.DateTime”.
At line:1 char:1

  • [datetime]$myTime = $myContent
  •   + CategoryInfo          : MetadataError: (:) [], ArgumentTransformationMetadataException
  + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException
4

Well, without knowing exactly what you’re providing as input, I can tell you that the following works:

PS C:\> [datetime]$x = "11/22/1971"

PS C:\> $x | get-member


   TypeName: System.DateTime
5

you are not converting your string in line 2.

$whichDate = Read-Host “Enter date in MM/DD/YYYY format”
$mydate = ([datetime]$whichDate).AddDays(-1)

6

Here is a better way to filter the eventlog. build your filter in eventvwr and copy from the xml tab.

					$filterXML = @'

  
    *[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-WindowsUpdateClient'] and (Level=4 or Level=0) and (EventID=19)]]
  

'@
					
					$timespan = (get-date).adddays(-2)
					$eventlist = Get-WinEvent -computername $server -MaxEvents 10 -FilterXml $filterXML -erroraction "silentlycontinue" -Credential $credential | ? { $_.timecreated -gt $timespan }
7

forum is not accepting code block.

8

Thank you all. Below code worked for me, the obstetrical I had was to convert String to datetime.
If you see in Line 3 even though I am eliminating Header and reading the date, the variable $myContent is storing some extra characters and thus when I try to convert, it throws an error. However I passed $myContent variable data into a text file and then read the content of text file into a separate variable $myVar and then applied datatype conversion on $myVar, which worked out here.

I am sure there would be much easy approaches, however this worked for me and unblocked me. Once again thank you all for your responses and support.

Line 1. [datetime]$whichDate = get-date
Line 2. [datetime]$myDate = ([datetime]$whichDate).AddDays(-1)
Line 3. $myContent = Get-EventLog -LogName System -Message “Kernel-Boot” -After $myDate -Newest 1 |select TimeGenerated |ft -HideTableHeaders
Line 4. $myContent |Out-File C:\MyFile.txt
Line 5. $myVar = Get-Content C:\MyFile.txt
Line 6. [datetime]$myTime = [datetime]::Parse(“$myVar”)