title: Converting one unknown DatePattern to a known pattern
body: <p>I get the user machine's date pattern using this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Dim sysFormat As String = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so for example it comes as <code>M/d/yy</code>  but in my program I want to parse them in a <code>M/d/yyyy</code> format.   But they could even have some other format, we don't know what format. It is <strong>ALWAYS</strong> gonna be US English tho. </p>
  
  <p>So is there a way to automatically convert whatever it is to the <code>M/d/yyyy</code> format ? or do I have to manually do some string processing code and split the string to different parts for day,month, year? </p>