What property in CultureInfo.InvariantCulture helps to discard the functionality of "/".
I am having this problem because I have my customCulture.
and when I use it to format DateTime it replaces "/" with the culture Specific separator.
So I want to know what property if I change in my customCulture the functionality of "/" will be discarded.
Let me clear my problem,
I want to export some data to a file with DateTime as specified by user.
I am creating customCulture as follows
CultureInfo customCulture = new CultureInfo(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Name);
I am taking the date format from the user and injecting it into my CustomCulture object as
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = MyClass.DateFormatFromUser;
Now when I want to convert this to String pattern. I am doing it as follows,
string.Format(customCulture, "{0:G}", dateTimeValue);
Now the problem is String.Format replaces any "/" present in ShortDatePattern with customCulture.DateTimeFormat.DateSeparator
For example if he user gives the format as
dd/MM/yyyy
and my current culture is faeroese ie., {fo-FO}
For these I get output as 25-09-1990.
If you want to change your custom culture so that the date separator is the slash (/) then you are looking for the DateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator property:
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.DateSeparator = "/";
Use the escape character \: change every / into \/ when you don't want it to be replaced with culture separator.
DateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator is the culture-specific separator that separates the components of a date.
What you ask is not possible and Marcin Juraszek is right. There is a misunderstanding of how the format specifier and the CultureInfo work together.
The / character is a format specifier just like m,D,y,Y and all the other date format specifiers. That's just the syntax of the format string, it has nothing to do with culture and can't change. You can't change the meaning of '/' any more than you can change the meaning of the other specifiers
String.Format uses this specifier to find where it should place the CultureInfo's DateSeparator character when formatting a date.
It doesn't matter whether you include the specifier directly in a format string like String.Format("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}",DateTime.Now) or you pass it indirectly through CultureInfo.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern like you tried, it will always be replaced by the DateSeparator character.
Your only option is to escape the character either by prepending it with '\' or surrounding it with ' ' as cremor suggested, eg.
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd\\/MM/yyyy";
or
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd'/'MM/yyyy";
So, if you wanted to create a string like 11-07/2013 you would have to write something like this:
CultureInfo customCulture = new CultureInfo(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Name);
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd/MM\\/yyyy";
customCulture.DateTimeFormat.DateSeparator = "-";
var dateTimeValue = DateTime.Now;
var result = string.Format(customCulture,"{0:d}", dateTimeValue);
Console.WriteLine(result);
Related
From msdn it seems like I can create my own format with Datetime.ToString() method by using M, m, d, y etc. But when I tried one it didn't worked as expected, snipped below is the issue.
I was expecting 7/29/2015 but received 7-29-2015 !!! why?
Looks like your DateSeparator of your CurrentCulture is - and that's why / character replace itself to it.
"/" custom format specifier has a special meaning as replace me with current culture or supplied culture date separator.
You have a few options, you either escape it with single quotes (or \/ in a verbatim string literal) or use a culture that has / as a DateSeparator like InvariantCulture.
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString("M'/'d'/'yyyy");
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString(#"M\/d\/yyyy");
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString("M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
From msdn it seems like I can create my own format with Datetime.ToString() method by using M, m, d, y etc. But when I tried one it didn't worked as expected, snipped below is the issue.
I was expecting 7/29/2015 but received 7-29-2015 !!! why?
Looks like your DateSeparator of your CurrentCulture is - and that's why / character replace itself to it.
"/" custom format specifier has a special meaning as replace me with current culture or supplied culture date separator.
You have a few options, you either escape it with single quotes (or \/ in a verbatim string literal) or use a culture that has / as a DateSeparator like InvariantCulture.
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString("M'/'d'/'yyyy");
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString(#"M\/d\/yyyy");
string s = DateTime.Now.ToString("M/d/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
I have also tried shielding the '/' symbol in the formatting string, but it didn't quite work. My final goal is to get the date with the '/' symbols as separators. I guess I can use DateTime.ToString(“dd/MM/yyyy”).Replace('.', '/'), but that feels a bit excessive.
The / character in date/time format strings stands for "whatever the date separator of the format provider is". Since you do not supply a format provider Thread.CurrentCulture is used, and in your case the current culture uses . as the date separator.
If you want to use a literal slash, place it inside single quotes:
dateTime.ToString("dd'/'MM'/'yyyy");
Alternatively, you could specify a format provider where the date separator is /:
dateTime.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
All of the above is documented on MSDN.
See the difference in a live example.
string s = dt.ToString("dd/M/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
This is because of the way ToString works by default, in accordance with the current culture:
This method uses formatting information derived from the current
culture.
So, override that:
string date = dt.ToString("dd/M/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
This works (note the InvariantCulture):
DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
If a CultureInfo is not specified, the CurrentCulture will be used. If this is a culture that doesn't use slashes as separators in dates it is replaced by whatever the actual culture date separator is.
Consider this code:
TimeStamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.UtcNow.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
BlogComment.Date is a DateTime object with its date set. TimeStamp is just a literal.
I keep getting unrecognised escape sequence. How can I fix this problem?
You want a string literal - prefixing a string with # will not parse the string for escape sequences like you have in your string but take it in "literal" form.
#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz"
Edit:
Also there is no UtNow property on DateTime - this is a static property only available on the DateTime class. You can just write:
TimeStamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
or if your intention was to convert the time to UTC:
TimeStamp.Text = BlogComment.Date
.ToUniversalTime()
.ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
EDIT:
TimeStamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.ToUniversalTime().ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
Try this:
Stamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH\\:mm\\:ss.fffffffzzz");
Or
Stamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzz");
My mistake: The \ is indeed required, because it might be a custom format specifier.
And if you just want the current time, use
Stamp.Text = DateTime.UtcNow.ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
UtcNow is static. It should not be accessed from an instance. It should be accessed from the class itself.
Alternatively, you might want:
Stamp.Text = BlogComment.Date.ToUniversalTime().ToString(#"yyyy-MM-ddTHH\:mm\:ss.fffffffzzz");
This would get you the universal time of the Date in BlogComment.
When dealing with escaping characters in a DateTime format string, there's a similar question where #Oppositional's writes
When using custom format strings with
a DateTime, it is important to remeber
that you need to escape your
seperators using single quotes.
string time = DateTime.UtcNow.ToString(
"yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss'.'fffffffzzz",
DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo);
The characters surrounded by the single quotes ' are literal strings inside a DateTime format string.
However, escaping the - and : is redundant if you are also specifying the Invariant culture. You should always specify the culture when formatting dates and times.
It's also important to note that / and : are the (invariant) date and time separators in a DateTime format string. DateTime.ToString will use the current cultures to transform them as necessary. For example, Italian (it-IT) has the . as its time separator. Similarly fr-CH has a date separator of .
You can see this escaping in action if you take a look at System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.DateTimeFormat.UniversalSortableDateTimePattern which is yyyy'-'MM'-'dd HH':'mm':'ss'Z'
DateTime.UtcNow..ToString("o");
(o) Roundtrip (local):. . . . 2006-04-17T14:22:48.2698750-07:00
(o) Roundtrip (UTC):. . . . . 2006-04-17T21:22:48.2698750Z
(o) Roundtrip (Unspecified):. 2000-03-20T13:02:03.0000000
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zdtaw1bw(v=vs.85).aspx
How can I achieve the following with a format string: Do 01.01.2009 ?
It has to work in all languages (the example would be for Germany). So there should only be the short weekday and then the short date.
I tried 'ddd d' (without the '). However, this leads to 'Do 01'.
Is there maybe a character I can put before the 'd' so that it is tread on its own or something like that?
DateTime.Now.ToString("ddd dd/MM/yyyy")
You should be using the ISO 8601 standard if you are targeting audiences with varied spoken languages.
DateTime.Now.ToString("ddd yyyy-MM-dd");
Alternatively, you can target the current culture with a short date:
DateTime.Now.ToString("d", Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture);
or a long date:
DateTime.Now.ToString("D", Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture);
To get the locale specific short date, as well as the locale day name then you're going to have to use two calls, so:
myDate.ToString("ddd ") + myDate.ToString("d");
Have you considered using the long date format instead?
If you want to localize (I assume so, since you said "all languages"), you can use CultureInfo to set the different cultures you want to display. The MSDN library has info on Standard Date and Time Format Strings and CultureInfo Class.
The example MSDN provides:
// Display using pt-BR culture's short date format
DateTime thisDate = new DateTime(2008, 3, 15);
CultureInfo culture = new CultureInfo("pt-BR");
Console.WriteLine(thisDate.ToString("d", culture)); // Displays 15/3/2008
Just for reference, in Java it goes like this:
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
Date date = new Date();
String formattedDate = dateFormat.format(date);
If you want to ensure the same characters are used as separators, you have to use a backslash to escape the character, otherwise it will default to the locale you are in. I recommend using this string if you want the format you specified in your question
DateTime.Now.ToString("ddd dd.MM.yyyy");
To use forward slashes instead, you should escape them so that they always output as slashes.
DateTime.Now.ToString("ddd dd\\/MM\\/yyyy");