Inverse function of FormatDateTime - delphi

Question

I am looking for a function to reverse any string (YYYYMDD,YY/MM/DD,YYMMDD,...) created by the function FormatDateTime to datetime.
example
I have a string-date in format YYYYMMDDcreated by FormatDateTime
mydatestr:=FormatDateTime('YYYYMMDD',Mydate);
now how I can convert mydatestr to DateTime again?
UPDATE
these functions
function StrToDate(const S: string): TDateTime; overload;
function StrToDate(const S: string;
const FormatSettings: TFormatSettings): TDateTime; overload;
function StrToDateTime(const S: string): TDateTime; overload;
function StrToDateTime(const S: string;
const FormatSettings: TFormatSettings): TDateTime; overload;
do not support passing a string with the format to convert.
I am looking something like this
Mydatetime:=InvFormatDatetime('20091225','yyyymmdd');
or
Mydatetime:=InvFormatDatetime('20090108','yyyyddmm');

Answer 1

It is quite easy with existing solution, StrToDateFmt function in rxDateutil.pas unit from RX package, which can be downloaded here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rxlib/
EDIT:
Mentioned above function and StrToDateFmt from rxDateutil.pas are doing exactly what you expect, converting string to datetime using specified string mask, the code is too large to be included as this unit contains also other date functions, some of them required for converting string to date.
Example of use:
Result := StrToDateFmtDef('MM/DD/YYYY', '11/11/2011', Now);

Answer 2

Note: Unfortunately, as pointed out by Martien in this answer's comments, this solution will not work for cases where the date includes no date separator. However, I'm going to leave the answer up for anyone that may find it useful regardless.
I liked Tuncay's answer but there were a couple of problems with it. I'd have left a comment but I don't have enough reputation points.
So, here's the corrected version of Tuncay's answer (amending "TFormatSetting" missing an "s" and specified the format settings date separator):
function AnyStringToDate(fmt, dt: String) : TDateTime;
var
fs : TFormatSettings;
Begin
fs := TFormatSettings.Create;
fs.DateSeparator := '-';
fs.ShortDateFormat := fmt;
result := StrToDateDef(dt, 0, fs);
End;
Identical to Tuncay's answer, AnyStringToDate can be used as follows:
mydate := AnyStringToDate('YYYY-MM-DD', '2015-01-20');

Answer 3

Without using any external library, you can do something like:
function AnyStringToDate(fmt, dt: String) : TDateTime;
var
fs : TFormatSettings;
Begin
fs := TFormatSettings.Create;
fs.ShortDateFormat := fmt;
result := StrToDateDef(dt, 0, fs);
End;
and then use it like:
mydate := AnyStringToDate('YYYY-MM-DD', '2015-01-20');
I havent compiled this, but the idea simple.

Answer 4

You could use StrToDateFmt function of JvJCLUtils unit belonging to JEDI Code Library
in your case :
Function InvFormatDatetime ( dateString :String; dateFormat :String ) : TDateTime;
begin
Result := JvJCLUtils.StrToDateFmt ( dateFormat, dateString );
end;

Answer 5

Did you check StrToDate and StrToDateTime ?

Answer 6

I know its too late but just for interest sake, with Delphi XE6 onwards you can now do the following
uses
System.DateUtils;
var
dt: TDateTime;
begin
dt := ISO8601ToDate('20190408');
end.
dt will now be 2019/04/08

Answer 7

Function InvFormatDatetime (Cadena:String; Formato:String) : TDateTime;
Var
PosD, PosM, PosY : Integer;
sD, sM, sY : String;
begin
sd := '0';
sm := '0';
sy := '0';
If Length(Cadena) = Length(Formato) Then
Begin
Formato := UpperCase(Formato);
PosD := Pos('D',Formato);
PosM := Pos('M',Formato);
PosY := Pos('Y',Formato);
sd := Copy(Cadena,PosD,2);
sm := Copy(Cadena,PosM,2);
if Length(Cadena) = 6 then
begin
sy := Copy(Cadena,PosY,2);
if StrToInt(sy) > 50 then
sy := '19'+sy
else
sy := '20'+sy;
end
else
sy := Copy(Cadena,Posy,4);
End;
Result := EncodeDate(StrToInt(sY),
StrToInt(sM),
StrToInt(sD));
End;
greetings