Culture sensitive DateTime.ToString with dd and MM - c#

I am wanting to display a list of dates in a WPF app in short date format with padded days and months.
i.e. in Australia/UK, this should appear as dd/MM/yyyy. In the US it would appears as MM/dd/yyyy
Is there a culture sensitive straightforward/simple method or pattern I can use to do this?
DateTime.ToShortDateString()
does not pad the day and month.

The CultureInfo is built into .NET framework so that you do not have to concern yourself with the details of formatting dates for each culture. So you should just do DateTime.ToShortDateString() and be done with it.
That being said, we can modify the CultureInfo ShortDatePattern to get what you want.
static void Main()
{
DateTime date = new DateTime(2014, 1, 2);
// Change our CuurentCulture to: US
CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-us");
// Standard format for US: 1/2/2014
Console.WriteLine(date.ToString("d"));
// Force leading zero on month and day for US format: 01/02/2014
Console.WriteLine(GetShortDateString(date));
// Change our CuurentCulture to: AU
CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-au");
// Standard format for AU: 2/01/2014
Console.WriteLine(date.ToString("d"));
// Force leading zero on day for AU format: 02/01/2014
Console.WriteLine(GetShortDateString(date));
}
static string GetShortDateString(DateTime date)
{
string format = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern;
if (!format.Contains("dd"))
format = format.Replace("d", "dd");
if (!format.Contains("MM"))
format = format.Replace("M", "MM");
return date.ToString(format);
}

Have a look at the DateTimeFormatInfo class which formats DateTime values depending on culture.

Related

Converting string to date in another culture

I am trying to convert a string (which represents date in invariantCulture) to dateTime in given culture. The problem is that when the date is converted to German culture, the day becomes month and month becomes day.
What is wrong with below code or am i missing something ?
var day = 11; var month = 12; var year = 2014;
var someDate = new DateTime(year, month, day);
var theDay = someDate.Day;//11 ok as expected
var theMonth = someDate.Month; //12 ok as expected
var dateString = someDate.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
var date1 = DateTime.Parse(dateString, CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de-De"));
var day1 = date1.Day;//12 this should be 11 ?
var month1 = date1.Month; //11 this should be 12 ?
The second argument to DateTime.Parse is used to tell the parser what format the string is in, not what format you want to convert it to. You are generating an invariant string and then parsing it as a German string which is why your day and month are getting swapped.
If your goal is to get a German string representation of the date, just use var dateString = someDate.ToString(CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de-DE")).
I guess de-De culture doesn't have a standard date and time format as MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss.
Since you using DateTime.ToString() method with InvariantCulture, result string will be "G" standard format which is MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss for InvariantCulture.
Because of that, dateString will be 12/11/2014 00:00:00 and de-DE culture doesn't have a standard date and time format MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss but has dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss which is dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss for de-DE culture.
That's why DateTime.Parse method matches pattern which is dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss (since it's DateSeparator is . it should be dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss format).
That's why it parses your 12 as a Day and 11 as a Month.
If you already a DateTime (which you have) just use .ToString() method with your de-DE culture like;
var culture = new CultureInfo("de-De");
var dateString = someDate.ToString(culture);
Remember, a DateTime doesn't have any implicit format or culture. It just have date and time values. String representations of them can have formats.
By the way, you can find all standard date and time patterns your de-DE culture like;
var culture = new CultureInfo("de-De");
foreach (var format in culture.DateTimeFormat.GetAllDateTimePatterns())
{
Console.WriteLine(format);
}
Change the following line and test it again:
var dateString = someDate.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
to:
var dateString = someDate.ToString("O");
or:
var dateString = someDate.ToString("S");
ok, here is what i think what you want to accomplish, not sure if i got you right: you want to read an invariant cultured date string and convert it to a german cultured date string.
but in your example you are trying to parse an invariant cultured date AS a german cultured date. of course that leads to a misinterpretation. try this:
string invariantCultureDateString = "12/11/2014 00:00:00";
var dateTime = DateTime.Parse(invariantCultureDateString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
string germanCultureDateString = dateTime.ToString(CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de-De"));
BR

String format to convert datetime causes an error

I try to convert persiandate to standard date.So my persian date has these formats (it means the user can enter these formats :
1392/1/1
1392/01/01
1392/01/1
1392/1/01
So i write a function to convert my persian date to standard date like this :
public DateTime ConvertPeersianToEnglish(string persianDate)
{
string[] formats = { "yyyy/MM/dd" };
DateTime d1 = DateTime.ParseExact(persianDate, formats,
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, DateTimeStyles.None);
PersianCalendar persian_date = new PersianCalendar();
DateTime dt = persian_date.ToDateTime(d1.Year, d1.Month, d1.Day, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0);
return dt;
}
But these function just can handle this formats 1392/01/01 and of the users enter other formats i got this error:
String was not recognized as a valid DateTime
Best regards
You're specifying MM and dd in your format, which require two digits. Just specify "yyyy/M/d" as the format - that should handle both 1 and 2-digit day/month values. (You can specify multiple formats instead, but in this case you don't need to. You might want to consider doing that just to be clear, but M and d will both handle two digit values with a leading zero with no problems.
Note that if you're just specifying a single format, you don't need to put it in an array. You can just use:
string format = "yyyy/M/d";
DateTime d1 = DateTime.ParseExact(persianDate, format,
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,
DateTimeStyles.None);
However:
I suspect you want to specify the invariant culture, given that you don't want this value to affected by the culture
Your current approach of converting a date to the Persian calendar will simply not work.
Currently you're implicitly validating that the date given is in the Gregorian calendar, but then you're treating it as a Persian date. For example, 1392/02/30 is a valid Persian date, but not a valid Gregorian date.
Instead, you should use a culture which already uses the Persian calendar, and then specify that as the culture in your DateTime.ParseExact call. Then you don't need to do anything else afterwards.
You might alternatively want to consider using my Noda Time library - version 1.3 which includes the Persian calendar should be released in the next day or two.
Sample code using Noda Time:
var persian = CalendarSystem.GetPersianCalendar();
// The pattern takes the calendar system from the default value
var sampleDate = new LocalDate(1392, 1, 1, persian);
var pattern = LocalDatePattern.CreateWithInvariantCulture("yyyy/M/d")
.WithTemplateValue(sampleDate);
var date = pattern.Parse("1392/02/30").Value;
Console.WriteLine(LocalDatePattern.IsoPattern.Format(date));
Specify all formats in string[] formats:
string[] formats = { "yyyy/MM/dd", "yyyy/M/d", "yyyy/MM/d", "yyyy/M/dd" };
But these function just can handle this formats 1392/01/01
Because your yyyy/MM/dd format only support this value.
If your input can be
1392/1/1
1392/01/01
1392/01/1
1392/1/01
values, you should provide all formats that support these in your formats array in your DateTime.ParseExact method.
string[] formats = { "yyyy/MM/dd", "yyyy/M/dd", "yyyy/MM/d", "yyyy/M/dd" };
With these formats, if your value matches one of these formats, your parsing will be succeeded.

Convert string to mm/dd/yyyy datetime

I'm trying to convert string which comes from textbox, for example in this format '03/24/2014' to DateTime. This is what I'm trying:
CultureInfo us = new CultureInfo("en-US");
dtAssemblyDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value, "dd/MM/yyyy", us);
or
dtAssemblyDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value, "dd/MM/yyyy", null);
But no luck and I'm getting exceptions that the value cannot be casted as DateTime. How can I fix this problem?
03/24/2014 isn't a valid date in dd/MM/yyyy format (there are only 12 months in a year1).
Either change your format string to MM/dd/yyyy or use a valid date in your chosen format.
1: Or 13 months in some types of Calendar, but "en-US" uses the 12-month Gregorian calendar.
DateTime myDate = DateTime.ParseExact("24/03/2014", "dd/MM/yyyy",
System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
03/24/2014 has the day of the month as the middle component. That might seem strange, but that's how it's done in some parts of the world (mostly Northern America).
Thus, when specifying the format for parsing, you also have to put the day of the month (dd) in the middle:
CultureInfo us = new CultureInfo("en-US");
dtAssemblyDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value, "MM/dd/yyyy", us);
Obviously, it is not possible to parse a text field that accepts both middle-endian (MM/dd/yyyy) and small-endian (dd/MM/yyyy) dates, because ambiguities like 01/02/2014 cannot be resolved automatically.
If the string is expressed in the format MM/dd/yyyy then
CultureInfo us = new CultureInfo("en-US");
dtAssemblyDate = DateTime.ParseExact(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value, "MM/dd/yyyy", us);
but I prefer to use DateTime.TryParse to avoid surprises...
if(DateTime.TryParse(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value,
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
DateTimeStyles.None,
out dtAssemblyDate))
Console.WriteLine(dtAssemblyDate.ToShortDateString());
CultureInfo us = new CultureInfo("en-US");
DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(txtOperationSignatureDate.Value, us.DateTimeFormat);
Whatever DateTimeFormat you require, you just need to pass corresponding culture with it.
Try using
string date = textbox.Value;
DateTime dt = Convert.ToDateTime(date);

datetime.tostring month and day language

i have a list of email addresses of people that have different nationalities (for each person i have the iso code)
when i send the email to all these people, in the text of the mail i need to to convert a datetime field to a string formatted in their specific culture.
for this i'm doing
CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo(ISO);
myStringDate = myDate.ToString(ci.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern);
and work perfect, but if i use LongDatePattern instead short, for displaying date like "Monday, 13 June 2010" its work fine except the language of the day and month.
if the person culture is it-IT i need to display "Martedi" and "Giugno" not "monday" and "June"
how can i do that without change the current UI culture?
Those patterns describe year, month, day and other parameter locations in the output result of DateTime. But month and day names are taken from the CultureInfo object, not pattern. There's the DateTime.ToString() overload that supports passing the CultureInfo parameter along with the format.
CultureInfo culture = new CultureInfo(ISO);
DateTime.Now.ToString(culture.DateTimeFormat.LongDatePattern, culture);
This way, .ToString() will respect both pattern and names from specified culture
You have only specified the format pattern, so it takes the other settings from the default format. You should also specify the format provider:
myStringDate = myDate.ToString(ci.DateTimeFormat.LongDatePattern, ci);
or using the standard format string D for long date pattern (as it will take the actual pattern from the format provider that you specify):
myStringDate = myDate.ToString("D", ci);
Demo:
CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo("it-IT");
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString("D", ci));
ci = new CultureInfo("sv-SE");
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString("D", ci));
Output:
giovedì 26 gennaio 2012
den 26 januari 2012
I just had a similar problem and solved it with:
DateTime.Now.ToString("dddd, dd MMMM yyyy", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("it-IT"));
That was thanks to this link.
Use DateTimeFormatInfo class.
string code = "mk-MK";
DateTimeFormatInfo info =
DateTimeFormatInfo.GetInstance(CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(code));
string longDate =
DateTime.Now.ToString(info.LongDatePattern, new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(code));
DateTime.ToString() has yet another overload with which you can specify both the pattern you want (as you are currently and the culture to use. Try:
myStringDate = myDate.ToString(ci.DateTimeFormat.LongDatePattern,
ci);

format date in c#

How can I format a date as dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yy ?
Like in VB format("dd/mm/yy",now)
How can I do this in C#?
It's almost the same, simply use the DateTime.ToString() method, e.g:
DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yy");
Or:
DateTime dt = GetDate(); // GetDate() returns some date
dt.ToString("dd/MM/yy");
In addition, you might want to consider using one of the predefined date/time formats, e.g:
DateTime.Now.ToString("g");
// returns "02/01/2009 9:07 PM" for en-US
// or "01.02.2009 21:07" for de-CH
These ensure that the format will be correct, independent of the current locale settings.
Check the following MSDN pages for more information
DateTime.ToString() method
Standard Date and Time Format Strings
Custom Date and Time Format Strings
Some additional, related information:
If you want to display a date in a specific locale / culture, then there is an overload of the ToString() method that takes an IFormatProvider:
DateTime dt = GetDate();
dt.ToString("g", new CultureInfo("en-US")); // returns "5/26/2009 10:39 PM"
dt.ToString("g", new CultureInfo("de-CH")); // returns "26.05.2009 22:39"
Or alternatively, you can set the CultureInfo of the current thread prior to formatting a date:
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
dt.ToString("g"); // returns "5/26/2009 10:39 PM"
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("de-CH");
dt.ToString("g"); // returns "26.05.2009 22:39"
string.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", DateTime.Now)
Look up "format strings" on MSDN to see all formatting options.
Use yy, yyyy, M, MM, MMM, MMMM, d, dd, ddd, dddd for the date component
Use h, hh, H, HH, m, mm, s, ss for the time-of-day component
In you can also write
DateTime aDate = new DateTime();
string s = aDate.ToShortDateString();
for a short notation
or
DateTime aDate = new DateTime();
string s = aDate.ToLongDateString();
for a long notation like "Sunday, Febuary 1, 2009".
Or take a look at MSDN for the possibities of .ToString("???");
Try this :
String.Format("{0:MM/dd/yyyy}", DateTime.Now); // 01/31/2009
String.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}", DateTime.Now); // 31/01/2009
String.Format("{dd/MM/yyyy}", DateTime.Now); // 31/01/2009
Better yet, use just
DateTime.Now.ToString()
or
DateTime.Now.ToString(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture)
to use the format the user prefers.
I ran into the same issue. What I needed to do was add a reference at the top of the class and change the CultureInfo of the thread that is currently executing.
using System.Threading;
string cultureName = "fr-CA";
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo(cultureName);
DateTime theDate = new DateTime(2015, 11, 06);
theDate.ToString("g");
Console.WriteLine(theDate);
All you have to do is change the culture name, for example:
"en-US" = United States
"fr-FR" = French-speaking France
"fr-CA" = French-speaking Canada
etc...
I think this is simple as you can convert to and from any format without any confusion
DateTime.ParseExact(txt.Text, "dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture).ToString("yyyy/MM/dd"));

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