How to find the 3rd Friday in a month with C#?

Question

Given a date (of type DateTime), how do I find the 3rd Friday in the month of that date?

Answer 1

Probably best to abstract this to a method to do any date/day combination:

(Extension Method)

public static bool TryGetDayOfMonth(this DateTime instance, 
                                 DayOfWeek dayOfWeek, 
                                 int occurance, 
                                 out DateTime dateOfMonth)
{
    if (instance == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("instance");
    }

    if (occurance <= 0 || occurance > 5)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("occurance", "Occurance must be greater than zero and less than 6.");
    }

    bool result;
    dateOfMonth = new DateTime();

    // Change to first day of the month
    DateTime dayOfMonth = instance.AddDays(1 - instance.Day);

    // Find first dayOfWeek of this month;
    if (dayOfMonth.DayOfWeek > dayOfWeek)
    {
        dayOfMonth = dayOfMonth.AddDays(7 - (int)dayOfMonth.DayOfWeek + (int)dayOfWeek);
    }
    else
    {
        dayOfMonth = dayOfMonth.AddDays((int)dayOfWeek - (int)dayOfMonth.DayOfWeek);
    }

    // add 7 days per occurance
    dayOfMonth = dayOfMonth.AddDays(7 * (occurance - 1));

    // make sure this occurance is within the original month
    result = dayOfMonth.Month == instance.Month;


    if (result)
    {
        dateOfMonth = dayOfMonth;
    }

    return result;
}

Results:

DateTime myDate = new DateTime(2013, 1, 1)
DateTime dateOfMonth;

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Sunday, 1, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: true; dateOfMonth = Sunday, 1/6/2013

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Sunday, 4, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: true; dateOfMonth = Sunday, 1/27/2013

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Sunday, 5, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: false; 

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Wednesday, 1, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: true; dateOfMonth = Wednesday, 1/2/2013

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Wednesday, 4, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: true; dateOfMonth = Wednesday, 1/23/2013

myDate.TryGetDayOfMonth(DayOfWeek.Wednesday, 5, out dateOfMonth) 
// returns: true; dateOfMonth = Wednesday, 1/30/2013 

// etc