Format date string in a specific pattern

Question

I have a to display Date format in this format

Tuesday April 17 6:12:02 2018

I have tried this

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var today = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);
        var day = today.Day;
        var month = today.Month;
        var year = today.Year;

        Console.WriteLine(today);
        Console.WriteLine(day);
        Console.WriteLine(month);
        Console.WriteLine(year);
        var answer = day + "/" + month + "/" + year;
        Console.WriteLine(answer);
        Console.WriteLine(today);
    }
}

How can I get the Month and Day like Tuesday, Wednesday in full text , also can the date be changed to AM and PM... I can get the year and date in int.

You _really_ need to look into [string format patterns](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings). Your entire problem can be solved in 1 line of code — maccettura, Apr 17 '18 at 16:03
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings — Daxtron2, Apr 17 '18 at 16:04

Jimenemex · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-17T17:04:01.533

5

This was taken from the docs listed in the comments. You basically add in the string format patterns with the format you want to display. Notice there is a difference between uppercase and lowercase formats.

As Mentioned by Soner Gönül, if you are targeting an audience to not be english based then consider adding in a CultureInfo.InvariantCulture field to the toString(). That way the date displayed is not tied to a certain culture. Just don't forget to include System.Globalization.

From the docs:

Invariant culture data is stable over time and across installed cultures and cannot be customized by users. This makes the invariant culture particularly useful for operations that require culture-independent results, such as formatting and parsing operations that persist formatted data

var today = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);

Console.WriteLine(today.ToString("dddd MMMM dd hh:mm:ss tt yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));

// Monday April 16 12:11:06 PM 2018 <- My time

edited Apr 17 '18 at 17:04

answered Apr 17 '18 at 16:10

Jimenemex

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Perfect https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings – lawal yemi Apr 17 '18 at 16:29
1

For the hour `6` to be output as `6` rather than `06` change the `hh` to `h`. `DateTime.Now.Date.AddHours(1).ToString("dddd MMMM dd h:mm:ss tt yyyy")` – Stephen Kennedy Apr 17 '18 at 16:31
Be careful about culture! If your `CurrentCulture` is **not** "english-based", you can't get english day and month names as a result. That's why you should always consider to supply culture settings. – Soner Gönül Apr 17 '18 at 16:53

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '18 at 16:46

This is a classic formatting question.

If you wanna get textual (aka string) representation of a DateTime, the most usual way is using ToString method with optional format and culture settings.

Your aimed string contains english-based month and day names. That's why you need to use an english-based culture setting like InvariantCulture.

And putting formats in your string, you just need to follow the rules on custom date and time format strings page.

var answer = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1).ToString("dddd MMMM dd h:mm:ss yyyy", 
                                               CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Format date string in a specific pattern

2 Answers2