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Qt Code: 
  1. #include <QCoreApplication>
  2. #include <QDateTime>
  3. #include <QStringList>
  4. #include <QDebug>
  5.  
  6. int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  7.     QCoreApplication app(argc, argv);
  8.  
  9.     // Mimics your reading via std::string
  10.     std::string str("2013-10-14 23:59:59,some,other,stuff");
  11.     QString row = QString::fromLocal8Bit(str.c_str());
  12.     QStringList rowVec = row.split(",");
  13.     QString timestamp = rowVec.at(0);
  14.     QDateTime timestampH = QDateTime::fromString(timestamp,"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
  15.     timestampH.setTimeSpec(Qt::UTC);
  16.     qDebug() << timestampH << timestampH.toString(Qt::ISODate) << timestampH.isNull();
  17.  
  18.     return 0;
  19. }
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Output:
Qt Code: 
  1. QDateTime("Mon Oct 14 23:59:59 2013") "2013-10-14T23:59:59Z" false
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