Starting program in different regional settings, CultureInfo

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

Hello Guys,

After a bit of testing I bumped into wall again...
I am trying to start a program (MS Access) in different regional settings. I have tried to do it this way:

C#

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-GB");
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("en-GB");

Access.Application AcApp = new Access.Application();
AcApp.OpenCurrentDatabase(@"C:\test.accdb");

So - my original regional settings of the system are German so date separator is dot "." and in "en-GB" it should be "/". Though when I open the DB with the code above I still see "." as date separator. (So it's 2013.04.04, while I want to see 2013/04/04)

Is anyone aware of what I doing wrong here?

P.S.: what I am trying to achieve here is make everyone to have the same view of the database table. No matter what regional settings they are using as default on their systems.

Thanks a lot m8s!

Posted 4-Apr-13 0:57am

MK-Gii

Add a Solution

2 solutions

Solution 1

The first thing to say is: probably, you are making a mistake by trying to "fix" the culture to any format - particularly if it is one which can be confused. People set the culture on their PC to what they are used to, and fixing it to something else may cause problems or even anger. So unless this is for a very, very good reason, then don't do it.

If it is for a good reason, then it's pretty simple to do: I assume that you are using a DateTime value here, as string based dates don't change format! :laugh:

All you have to do is stop using the default transformation. Without knowning exactly what you are doing to display it, it's difficult to be precise about what you need to do, ybut at somepoint you are using the default ToString implementation, either explicitly or implicitly via a string concatenation. Instead, specify exactly what format you want:

C#

DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
string s = now.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd");

If the problem is that the dates in Access are being displayed in the local format, then changing the thread culture will not help - the Access instance will not share a common thread with your application because it is a separate Process, with it's own thread collection, so changing the culture will have no affect on it. And if you start mucking with the global culture you will really annoy your users!

It may be possible to format the date output for specific data in Access itself, depending on what you are using to display the info.

Posted 4-Apr-13 1:11am

OriginalGriff

Comments

MK-Gii 4-Apr-13 7:32am

Well - it's not string based. And the regional setting switch is not what I am trying to achieve. I just want everybody using the program to be tied to the view I am giving. You know - some users will copy/paste the date from the DB into mail and having mails with diferent date formats is not what I am looking for. The environment where I am working is multicultural so I want to set the standard for this. And yeah - I don't care about the fact that some people are using any other operators for date separation - we must have the same.

So - I still need to get this done.

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

MK-Gii · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-04T01:43:00

Found the solution - I wrote the function which will read the registry key from here:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\sDate
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\sShortDate
Store their values in some string variables.
Change the separator to whatever I need. This takes effect immediately (no need to relogin)
:)
Then I open the DB and user sees what I want.
When he closes the program - it restores the settings back.

This is so far the only solution I could think of.