xquery sort datetime MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss - sorting

Question

I would like to create a xquery function that gets a list of dates in the following format : MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss and returns the min.
I have created the following but it only works when the dates are in yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss format.
let $dates := <Dates>
<date>2012-11-11T10:10:10</date>
<date>2012-11-11T10:10:10</date>
<date>2012-11-12T10:10:10</date>
</Dates>
let $DatesStructure :=
for $date in $dates/date
order by xs:dateTime($date/text()) descending
return <date> {$date/text()} </date>
return <Dates> { $DatesStructure } </Dates>
I would like to have the same functionality for dates in the following format MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss

Answer 1

Use:
let $dates := <Dates>
<date>11/11/2012 10:10:10</date>
<date>11/11/2012 10:10:10</date>
<date>11/12/2012 10:10:10</date>
</Dates>
let $DatesStructure :=
for $date in $dates/date
order by
xs:dateTime
(let $parts := tokenize(substring-before($date, ' '), '/'),
$y := $parts[3], $m := $parts[1], $d := $parts[2],
$t := substring-after($date, ' ')
return
concat($y,'-',$m,'-',$d, 'T', $t)
)
descending
return <date> {$date/text()} </date>
return <Dates> { $DatesStructure } </Dates>
This query produces the wanted, correct result:
<Dates>
<date>11/12/2012 10:10:10</date>
<date>11/11/2012 10:10:10</date>
<date>11/11/2012 10:10:10</date>
</Dates>