Extract a format of date from a string

Takeshi Okada 2986 06 Mar 2014

I need to extract a date of birth from a given string. The format is always "ddMMMyy" (for example "22NOV83").

The problem is that there could be other chars before and after the dob. possible inputs are : "DOB: 22NOV83", "CUSTOMER A DOB: 22NOV", "22NOV83 BLA BLA"

I think that by using this Regex:

^\d{2}[a-zA-Z]{3}\d{2}$

I can check if a string mathces a date , But how to check if a part of a string mathces a date and than extract it ?

Any help would be appreciated.

Ask by Takeshi Okada

Updated 06 Mar 2014

1 Answers

Pravesh Singh 06 Mar 2014

Hi Takeshi,

var extractedDates = new List<DateTime>();
  foreach (var s in inputs) {
    var m = Regex.Match(s, @"(\d{2}[A-Za-z]{3}\d{2})");
    if (m.Groups.Count == 1) {
      // No match
      continue;
    }
    try {
      extractedDates.Add(DateTime.Parse(m.Groups[0].Value));
    } catch (FormatException) {
      // Regex matched but something else was wrong, i.e. 98ALS98
    }
  }

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