C# how to keep datetimes independent of regional settings

MayukhSen

i am taking the system date as DateTime.Now.Date its giving diffetent values for diferent culture 6/5/2010 12:00:00 AM : for English(United State) 05/06/2010 00:00:00 : for English(United Kingdom) I want my dates in '6/5/2010 12:00:00 AM' how to get date independent of regional settings

DaveyM69

DateTime is just a long counting ticks IIRC - what you are seeing is just the string representation for the culture in question. Specify your own string format, culture or InvariantCulture. PiebaldConsult will be here shortly with his ISO comments!

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OriginalGriff

As Davey says, DateTime.Now just returns a time - it has no format. When you specify the output format, then you can use the current culture, specify a culture, or fix the format so that it is culture invariant. Have a look here[^] - it shows all the various parts you can use to format your date.

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Pete OHanlon

As others have pointed out, a DateTime is a region independent structure already. What you are talking about is using a format converter to control how it is displayed. Before you look at setting the output of the date to be a particular format, I must ask you to consider how your application is going to be used; people have a specific local regional setting in place and generally expect their dates to be displayed in those formats - this can be critical because it has an effect on the understanding of the date. When I looked at your example, my first thought was that you were talking about the 6th of May because I am based in the UK, by displaying a different regional setting you have skewed my understanding of your data.

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Luc Pattyn

Ah, DateTime, a perfect source of confusion around the globe. You might want to read this[^]. It holds some cues, including a reference to the infamous ISO 8601. :)

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MayukhSen

Thank you for your response. I have found out the solution . I am setting my Application Culture at startup Application.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");