MSDN Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 18)

information about Swedish as it is used in Finland, you would specify the name “sv-FI” in the constructor. The Framework includes information on many cultures, and Windows also has data for a variety of locales. In addition to this, users can create their own custom culture. CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo("sv-FI"); Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString(ci.DateTimeFormat. LongDatePattern, ci)); Globalization makes sure that your application can handle data from different cultures. CultureInfo implements IFormatProvider, which is a type that ToString can accept as an argument for dates and numbers. So to go back to the original DateTime.Now.ToString example, if you wanted to get the date formatted with the default format associated with the sv-FI culture, you could write the following: DateTime.Now.ToString(new CultureInfo("sv-FI")); If there were no user overrides for sv-FI and the date in question happened to be “6/26/1980” again, the date would print as “26.6.1980” followed by the time string. If you wanted to get the long date format associated with sv-FI, you could write: This would yield the string “den 26 juni 1980.” Note that there the LongDatePattern, which only includes the date portion of the DateTimeand omits the time. These examples work because the formatting information stored in the CultureInfo object is used. That explains how ToString works when specific formatting information is passed in. But as you saw at the very beginning, there are overloads of ToString that take no formatting information at all. Yet the data is still formatted. Where does the information come from? One of the static properties on the CultureInfo class is CurrentCulture. This returns the culture that is associated with the current thread. This property can be set via Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture. When threads are created, they default to the current culture of the operating system. If no format information is specified for a ToString or Parsing operation, the information in CultureInfo.CurrentCulture is used. Culture information in general is subject to change. A country might adopt the Euro or change time zone or add another date format. So even if you specify a culture, the data might change between uses. Remember, the globalization information is for display only. If you need to store data as strings, the InvariantCulture property on CultureInfo is a good choice. Solutions for every world. Visual Modeling for Business, IT and Systems Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems redefines visual modeling with a huge set of built-in tools, technologies and capabilities, coupled with a lightweight footprint and great agility. With deep support for UML 2.1 and its related standards, Enterprise Architect 7.1 is the ideal tool to analyze, design, build and manage your next software project. 18 msdn magazine CLR Inside Out http://www.sparxsystems.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - November 2008

Contents MSDN Magazine - November 2008 Toolbox CLR Inside Out Data Points Cutting Edge Security Briefs Test Your Security IQ Agile SDL Access Control Utility Spotlight RIA Test Run Wicked Code Foundations Team System End Bracket

MSDN Magazine - November 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.