DD4T: Date component field to DateTime

Question

I have a date field in a tridion schema which, when published using the standard DD4T templates, becomes the component field:

  <Field xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" FieldType="Date" XPath="tcm:Metadata/custom:Metadata/custom:date">
          <Name>dates</Name>
          <Values>
            <string>16/08/2013 18:47:16</string>
          </Values>
          <NumericValues />
          <DateTimeValues>
            <dateTime>2013-08-16T18:47:16</dateTime>
          </DateTimeValues>
          <LinkedComponentValues />
          <EmbeddedValues />
          <Keywords />
    </Field>

Does DD4T provide a method for converting the values of a date field value (string) into a DateTime object?

e.g. from dateTimeString to DateTime:

string dateTimeString metadataFields["dates"].Values[0];

Answer 1

I was one step ahead of myself. DD4T provides the method IField.DateTimeValue, therefore you don't need to get the string value then convert to a DateTime, you simply go straight to the DateTime (as mpaton points out, ensure to check for values when putting the code to production):

if (page.MetadataFields.ContainsKey("modifyDate") && page.MetadataFields["modifyDate"] != null && page.MetadataFields["modifyDate"].DateTimeValues.Count > 0)
{   List<DateTime> myDates = metadataFields["dates"].DateTimeValues;
    DateTime myDate = myDates[0];
    ...
}