An example of how to work with custom time strings in C#

Time.cs

//locale information
CultureInfo provider = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;

//The timestamp from the external file
string dateString = "Dec 07 01:32:25 2009"; 

//the new format
string format = "MMM dd HH':'mm':'ss yyyy";

//Convert the time string into a legitimate DateTime object
DateTime result = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, provider);