Different behaviour with DateTime

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Hi Guys,

I have observed a scenario where DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") is working very fine if my System Date Format is MM/dd/yyyy(ControlPanel->Region and Language). But if I change the System Date Format to dd-MM-yyyy then DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") returning result in the form of dd-MM-yyyy.

Any reason of this different scenario and how can we solve this. I want that irrespect of any System Date Format my DateTime.Now.ToString("") should return the same result of what format I am trying to return.

See below example.
1)When System Date format is MM/dd/yyyy(ControlPanel->Regional and Language)
DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy"); returning the date in proper format as expected.

1)When I change System Date format is dd-MM-yyyy(ControlPanel->Regional and Language)
DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy"); returning the date in dd-MM-yyyy format, in spite of specifying the ToString("MM/dd/yyyy")
So my question is why this behavior change if I am changing the System Date format.

Please help
Thanks in Advance

Posted 10-Dec-14 1:57am

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay

Updated 10-Dec-14 2:21am

v4

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Comments

PIEBALDconsult 10-Dec-14 8:11am

That doesn't seem likely.
Got examples? Show some code.
Use Improve question to add detail.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:22am

you want any more explanation??

PIEBALDconsult 10-Dec-14 8:32am

Yes, please show the code and some examples.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:45am

I have mentioned everything what I could help. This is a single line of code DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy").
It is working fine if my system date format is MM/dd/yyyy but this only single line of code is not working properly if I am changing my system date format to dd-MM-yyyy

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 8:37am

Actually yes, it's very hard to believe that DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") would return date in different format than specified. Are you sure you are not using DateTime.Now.ToString("d") in your code?

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:39am

No I am not. Even this is very strange to believe for me too but it is true.

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 8:44am

Can you reproduce it outside your app? In LinqPad or create a test console app.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:42am

You can try this by changing the system date format

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 8:45am

I did, it returns the date in specified format as expected.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:49am

How can I show you the screenshot of my Output??

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 8:58am

My test wasn't good enough, just switched day-month order, I was too lazy. You were right.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:47am

Basically / is getting converted into -

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 8:54am

This is exactly the problem! See my solution.

PIEBALDconsult 10-Dec-14 9:21am

Oh! I remember having that happen years ago! Now I have to try to remember the solution.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:24am

Please note that My windows Application is already running on more than 100 different PCs and I have used date object dot ToString() to convert the date into required format, but if the System Date format changes then my code is not working as expected and returning date in a wrong format.

2 solutions

Solution 1

Hi,

Please follow this link : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7577389/how-to-elegantly-deal-with-timezones[^]

Posted 10-Dec-14 2:04am

Sarrrva

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Tomas Takac · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-10T02:53:00

Solution 3

Your last comment about '/' being changed to '-' was correct! In date format slash (/) is just a placeholder for date separator[^]. Use backslash (\) to escape the slashes inyour format:

C#

DateTime.Now.ToString("MM\\/dd\\/yyyy");

Edit - specify culture
Alternativelly you can specify culture and use standard format:

C#

DateTime.Now.ToString("d", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Posted 10-Dec-14 2:53am

Tomas Takac

Updated 10-Dec-14 3:08am

v2

Comments

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 8:59am

This is correct and it worked too but we usually don't do this. So can't we use a standard format which should work on all systems.

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 9:09am

You can use standard format when you specify culture.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 9:13am

Can you please explain the concept behind it. Why only '/' is getting converted to '-'. If I am using any other seperator then that is working fine.

Tomas Takac 10-Dec-14 9:18am

Read the link! '/' is just a placeholder like 'dd' or 'MM' and gets replaced by the actual date separator for your current culture, which in your case is '-'.

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 10-Dec-14 9:22am

Thanks a lot for your help. Now I will have to change the separator everywhere in my code.

Maciej Los 10-Dec-14 9:32am

Instead of passing string into ToString("Your_format_here") method, use variable: ToString(Your_variable_here)!

Praveen Kumar Upadhyay 11-Dec-14 1:06am

I didn't get your meaning. Can you explain with an example.

Philippe Mori 10-Dec-14 21:24pm

If you want a custom format, then define a constant somewhere and use it everywhere. That way, you would have a single line to modify if you want to change the format.

PIEBALDconsult 10-Dec-14 9:23am

"a standard format which should work on all systems"

You mean ISO 8601? yyyy-MM-dd

Maciej Los 11-Dec-14 2:44am

+5