How to get Current Quarter from Current Date using C#

Question

I am trying to get the current quarter from current date and store it as int first, then after i get the current quarter like say it is Q1 then i want to store Q1 as string. I am getting an error that reads like this: unassigned local variable dt. . Please help. thanks

DateTime dt;
int quarterNumber = (dt.Month - 1) / 3 + 1;

Possible duplicate of [How do I discover the quarter of a given date](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8698303/how-do-i-discover-the-quarter-of-a-given-date) — Jim G., Jun 03 '19 at 13:19

score 31 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 21 '14 at 19:03

Well you're not specifying "the current date" anywhere - you haven't assigned a value to your dt variable, which is what the compiler's complaining about. You can use:

DateTime dt = DateTime.Today;

Note that that will use the system local time zone - and the date depends on the time zone. If you want the date of the current instant in UTC, for example, you'd want:

DateTime dt = DateTime.UtcNow.Date;

Think very carefully about what you mean by "today".

Also, a slightly simpler alternative version of your calculation would be:

int quarter = (month + 2) / 3;

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 02:06

1

This was a good start, I ended up using this line. Seemed more straightforward as to the goal, instead of adding 2.

Math.Ceiling(DateTime.Today.Month / 3m)

answered Sep 22 '15 at 02:06

Nick Albrecht

16,607
10
66
101

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '14 at 19:03

0

dt is currently assigned null. You need to initialize it with DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;

answered Jan 21 '14 at 19:03

Christophe De Troyer

2,852
3
30
47

3

Technically speaking, `dt` is not assigned to anything – Andrei Jan 21 '14 at 19:05
6

In particular, it can't be `null` - `DateTime` isn't a nullable type. – Jon Skeet Jan 21 '14 at 19:06
So if it is not `null`, what is the value then? The pointer to null? Or just rubbish in memory at that time? – Christophe De Troyer May 16 '16 at 19:39
@ChristopheDeTroyer I found your question interesting. This answer seems correct and was in line with my thinking https://stackoverflow.com/a/2929297/540156 – onefootswill Mar 13 '18 at 03:19

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 13 '18 at 03:03

0

It's initialised with the value of default(DateTime) which has the value of 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM

answered Mar 13 '18 at 03:03

Aaron Foote

11
1

Not if it's a local variable; If it's a local, it's not initialised at all and the compiler will throw errors if you try to use it without initialising it, which is what's happening in the question. Only class fields are initialised to `default(DateTime)`. – Mog0 May 05 '23 at 10:43

How to get Current Quarter from Current Date using C#

4 Answers4

Linked