Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."

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Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."

Juan Pazo 21

We have been dealing with a runbook for a month that stopped working.
7th of July it was the last time that it worked.

$time = [datetime]::parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration,'YYYY-MM-DD', $null).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy')
$countdays = (New-TimeSpan -start (get-date -format MM/dd/yyyy) -end $time)

These are the key variables.

I've reviewed the documentation at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.datetime.parseexact?view=net-6.0
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/storageservices/formatting-datetime-values

So I tried changing the format on my variable as per the following:

The following ISO 8601 UTC formats are currently accepted by Azure Storage. The date value is required, while the time value is optional:
YYYY-MM-DD

But at the end of the day, the error comes from the "parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration,'YYYY-MM-DD', $null)" section. I haven't seen any updates on modules that could have impacted the runbook exactly from the 7th of July.

Any ideas would be really appreciated.

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Answer 1

AnuragSingh-MSFT 21,546 Moderator

Hi @Juan Pazo ,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A for this question.

The issue is related to second parameter of [datetime]::parseexact - i.e., the format string. Note that PowerShell uses the .NET assembliess and conventions. In .NET, date and year are represented by lower-case letters ( dd and yyyy respectively). Therefore, the $time variable should be assigned as:

$time = [datetime]::parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration,'yyyy-MM-dd', $null).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy')

For details on DateTime format string in .NET, please see Custom date and time format strings

I believe that you are rereferring to the following Azure Doc, related to format of DateTime for Azure Storage. This article specifies the guidelines to be used for DateTime format in Azure Storage. The mentioned letters are provided for generic understanding (which is independent of programming/scripting language/framework). That format will have to be accordingly translated, depending on the programming/scripting language being used.
Formatting DateTime values in Azure Storage

Please let me know if you have any questions.

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Please 'Accept as answer' if it helped so that it can help others in the community looking for help on similar topics.

Juan Pazo 21 Reputation points

2022-08-03T08:13:54.27+00:00

Hi @AnuragSingh-MSFT

Thank you very much for looking into this. I have tried your proposed string formatting, and unfortunately the error persists:

$time = [datetime]::parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration,'yyyy-MM-dd', $null).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy')

I reviewed the documentation and found no further discrepancies on my syntax. When I call the $RTAG_Expiration, the result comes in this format 01/09/2022. I saw in the article you recommended the following: "method to parse a date that must include a day, a month, and a two-digit year."

Could this be the issue?

Thank you very much for your time and support
AnuragSingh-MSFT 21,546 Reputation points Moderator

2022-08-03T11:11:31.287+00:00

@Juan Pazo , Thank you for the reply. The format string (second parameter) has to match the string that you supply as first parameter (the date time string that needs to be parsed). In your scenario, it should be

$time = [datetime]::parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration,'dd/MM/yyyy', $null) //assuming that 01 is date. If 01 is month, change the format string to 'MM/dd/yyyy'

Hope this helps!

Please 'Accept as answer' if it helped so that it can help others in the community looking for help on similar topics.
AnuragSingh-MSFT 21,546 Reputation points Moderator

2022-08-04T06:09:54.33+00:00

@Juan Pazo , I wanted to check if you had a chance to review my answer above. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Please 'Accept as answer' if it helped so that it can help others in the community looking for help on similar topics.
Juan Pazo 21 Reputation points

2022-08-04T06:19:56.66+00:00

Hello Anurag,

Thank you very much for the follow-up. I was trying right now, but the ugly thing is that in 01/09/2022, 01 is the day of the month, 09 is the month and 2022 the year, so changing the actual format would not make sense...

This is the full Syntax of that runbook, I´m making all sorts of changes keeping it functioning but I would still get the error message on that string:

$resourcesgroups = Get-AzResourceGroup
$getlockedgroups = (Get-AzResourceLock).ResourceGroupName
foreach ($resourceGroup in $resourcesgroups){
if ($getlockedgroups -notcontains $resourceGroup.ResourceGroupName){
$RGName = $resourceGroup.ResourceGroupName
$RGTAG_owner = $resourceGroup.Tags.Owner
$RGTAG_project = $resourceGroup.Tags.Project
$RGTAG_Customer = $resourceGroup.Tags.Customer
$RGTAG_Env = $resourceGroup.Tags.Environment
$RGTAG_Expiration = $resourceGroup.Tags.ExpirationDate
$time = [datetime]::parseexact($RGTAG_Expiration, 'dd/MM/yyyy', $null).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy')
$countdays = (New-TimeSpan -start (get-date -format MM/dd/yyyy) -end $time)
$DAYSLEFT = $countdays.Days
$result = new-object System.Collections.ArrayList

Your help is very much appreciated
AnuragSingh-MSFT 21,546 Reputation points Moderator

2022-08-04T07:07:47.16+00:00

@Juan Pazo , thank you for the additional information.

Before you add this script to runbook, you can also run it locally on your machine to test the output. One of the reasons why I feel that parseexact might not be working as expected is that we dont have clarity of RGTAG_Expiration variable. There might be trailing or preceding blank spaces before or after the returned date string.

Can you please add the following lines after $RGTAG_Expiration = $resourceGroup.Tags.ExpirationDate to get some clarity.

write-output "RGTAG_Expiration : $RGTAG_Expiration"
write-output "RGTAG_Expiration type : $($RGTAG_Expiration.gettype())" #----to get the type. This should be String
write-output "RGTAG_Expiration length : $($RGTAG_Expiration.length)" #----to check if there are blankspaces which are not visible on the screen, with the date string.

I think reviewing these outputs should give us some direction to proceed. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Juan Pazo 21 Reputation points

2022-08-04T07:47:51.77+00:00

Hello,

Thank you very much for your quick response. Please find below the output>

RGTAG_Expiration : 29/08/2022
RGTAG_Expiration type : string
RGTAG_Expiration length : 10
RGTAG_Expiration : 01/10/2022
RGTAG_Expiration type : string
RGTAG_Expiration length : 10
RGTAG_Expiration : 30/09/2022
RGTAG_Expiration type : string
RGTAG_Expiration length : 10
RGTAG_Expiration :
Ops! Something went wrong You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
AnuragSingh-MSFT 21,546 Reputation points Moderator

2022-08-04T08:56:49.27+00:00

@Juan Pazo , thank you for the output.
To be sure, are you facing this issue for all the $RGTAG_Expiration values or only for the last one where it is empty/null (where you would indeed get the unable to parse error). It seems that one of the resources that you have polled does not have this tag RGTAG_Expiration set - because of which the script fails during execution after it has parsed a couple of valid dates. Once it gets to the one which is empty, the error is returned.

Hope this helps!
Juan Pazo 21 Reputation points

2022-08-04T10:15:35.023+00:00

Great news!

The issue is resolved following your instructions.

There were a few resource groups without RGTAG_Expiration Value, but they were meant to be locked and get into an exception. Thank you very much for your bright instructions and insightful ideas.

To anyone suffering the same issue, make sure that all your RG contains the RGTAG_Expiration with a value and they are not part of an exception.

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Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."

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