Set Default DateTime Format c#

Question

Is there a way of setting or overriding the default DateTime format for an entire application. I am writing an app in C# .Net MVC 1.0 and use alot of generics and reflection. Would be much simpler if I could override the default DateTime.ToString() format to be "dd-MMM-yyyy". I do not want this format to change when the site is run on a different machine.

Edit - Just to clarify I mean specifically calling the ToString, not some other extension function, this is because of the reflection / generated code. Would be easier to just change the ToString output.

score 59 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 02 '12 at 05:27

59

The "default format" of a datetime is:

ShortDatePattern + ' ' + LongTimePattern

at least in the current mono implementation. This is particularly painful in case you want to display something like 2001-02-03T04:05:06Z i.e. the date and time combined as specified in ISO 8606, but not a big problem in your case:

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Threading;

namespace test {
    public static class Program {
        public static void Main() {
            CultureInfo culture = (CultureInfo)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Clone();
            culture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MMM-yyyy";
            culture.DateTimeFormat.LongTimePattern = "";
            Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = culture;
            Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
        }
    }
}

This will set the default behavior of ToString on datetimes to return the format you expect.

edited Apr 02 '12 at 05:27

Community

1
1

answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:48

Paolo Tedesco

55,237
33
144
193

1

Thanks for the reply, where should this code be put in a .Net MVC 1.0 project, I have tried in the view and it works, but not in the global.asax – Matthew Hood Sep 07 '09 at 13:15
1

What do you mean by "in the view"? And what did you do in the global.asax exactly? – Paolo Tedesco Sep 07 '09 at 13:28
2

If I put <% CultureInfo culture = (CultureInfo)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Clone(); culture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MMM-yyyy"; culture.DateTimeFormat.LongTimePattern = ""; Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = culture; %> at the top of the View it formats all the DateTimes on the page correctly. However when I put that code in the Application_Start of the global.asax it does not work. I presume this has got to do with the multiple threading of the requests in IIS. Where is the best place to put this code to affect my whole site. – Matthew Hood Sep 07 '09 at 14:08
2

I would try Application_BeginRequest, but I think you'd better ask a new question... – Paolo Tedesco Sep 07 '09 at 14:52
1

This is a good answer. The only problem is that a space is appended at the end. Is there any way how to remove that space? ShortDatePattern + ' ' + LongTimePattern – czlatea Dec 18 '14 at 10:19

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:38

It is dependent on your application's localization-settings. Change that accordingly to get correct format.

Otherwise have a helper-class or an extension-method which always handles your DateTime.

public static string ToMyDateTime(this DateTime dateTime) {
    return dateTime.ToString("dd-MMMM-yy");
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:40

1

DateTime.ToString() combines the custom format strings returned by the ShortDatePattern and LongTimePattern properties of the DateTimeFormatInfo. You can specify these patterns in DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.

I've never tried this my self.

answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:40

Tadas Šukys

4,140
4
27
32

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:51

If you want to be sure that your culture stays the same, just set it yourself to avoid troubles.

System.Globalization.CultureInfo ci = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("nl-BE");
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ci;
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ci;

The above example sets the culture of the thread to Belgian-Dutch.

CurrentCulture does all the date and time handling and CurrentUICulture handles UI localization like resources.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:49

0

I'm not sure if this would work for a web app, but you could try to set the DateTimeFormat property for the current culture.

Check this and specially this.

answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:49

Fernando

4,029
1
26
35

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 25 '22 at 15:25

Using .Net 6 put something like this in your program.cs after app.UseAuthentication()/app.UseAuthorization() and before app.MapControllerRoute(...):

var ci = new CultureInfo("en-US");
ci.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "MM/dd/yyyy";
app.UseRequestLocalization(new RequestLocalizationOptions
{
    DefaultRequestCulture = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization.RequestCulture(ci),
    SupportedCultures = new List<CultureInfo> { ci },
    SupportedUICultures = new List<CultureInfo> { ci }
});

Here I'm changing the short date format, but you can also change currency symbol, decimal separator, etc.

score -2 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:35

-2

You can write an ExtensionMethod like this:

public static string ToMyString(this DateTime dateTime)
{
  return dateTime.ToString("needed format");
}

answered Sep 07 '09 at 12:35

ema

5,668
1
25
31

Set Default DateTime Format c#

7 Answers7

Linked