How to display a localised date format message to a user. RSS

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  WaterWolf123...

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  How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 09, 2012 01:20 PM|LINK

  I have a date format string "dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm". This is working fine for reading and displaying dates in a localised system. E.g. a DateTime could be displayed as "01/01/2011 12:50" or "01.01.2011 12:50" depending on the users Culture settings.

  Now I want to display a message to the user that says "Enter the date in this format dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm" but obviously this message is going to have to change depening on the culture too. Is there an easy way of changing the string "dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm" to "dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm" or whatever, depending on the CurrentCulture?

  I could use

  string messageDate = "dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm";
  
  messageDate = messageDate.Replace("/", DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.DateSeparator);
  messageDate = messageDate.Replace(":", DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.TimeSeparator);

  but is there a better way of doing this?

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  michaelalex7

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 09, 2012 01:41 PM|LINK

  Hi,

  You could try the following:

  string messageDate = string.Format("{0} {1}", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern, 

  System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortTimePattern);

  Hope this helps,

  • Edited by michaelalex7 on Jul 09, 2012 01:41 PM
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  WaterWolf123...

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 10, 2012 10:38 AM|LINK

  Yea, that was the other solution I came up with as well. My only worry would be that ShortDatePattern and ShortTimePattern combined wouldn't always match 'dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm'. Is it possible for example that the day and month in ShortDatePattern might be switched around to mm/dd/yyyy as in the American style?

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  michaelalex7

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 10, 2012 11:11 AM|LINK

  That would be a possibility yes. Do you want it so that the format is strictly day, month followed by year?

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  WaterWolf123...

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 10, 2012 11:33 AM|LINK

  Well the format string used to display and parse the date is specifically "dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm". I'd use one of the predefiend formats but there doesn't seem to be any predefined format that includes date and time but excludes seconds.

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  michaelalex7

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 10, 2012 12:39 PM|LINK

  I've just taken a look at the msdn website and this may do the trick:

  System.DateTime.Now.ToString("g")

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az4se3k1.aspx

  • Marked as answer by Sage Gu - MSFT on Jul 16, 2012 02:38 AM
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  swaiss

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  Re: How to display a localised date format message to a user.

  Jul 10, 2012 01:04 PM|LINK

  - Add "App_GlobalResources" folder

  - Add Resource File.resx

  - Add the name and its value in Resource File.resx

            * Name : dateFormat , Value : dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm

  - copy the file twice, now u have 3 files with the same name but different extension like this:

            * ValidationResources.resx

            * ValidationResources.en.resx

            * ValidationResources.gr.resx

  - change just the values in the other resouces file

  in code behind use this code to get the message

  label1.Text = Resources.ValidationResources.dateFormat;

  
  hope this help you.

  • Edited by swaiss on Jul 10, 2012 01:05 PM
  • Edited by swaiss on Jul 10, 2012 01:06 PM