I was trying to create an IFormatProvider
implementation that would recognize custom format strings for DateTime objects. Here is my implementation:
public class MyDateFormatProvider : IFormatProvider, ICustomFormatter
{
public object GetFormat(Type formatType)
{
if (formatType == typeof(ICustomFormatter))
{
return this;
}
return null;
}
public string Format(string format, object arg, IFormatProvider formatProvider)
{
if(arg == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("arg");
if (arg.GetType() != typeof(DateTime)) return arg.ToString();
DateTime date = (DateTime)arg;
switch(format)
{
case "mycustomformat":
switch(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Name)
{
case "en-GB":
return date.ToString("ddd dd MMM");
default:
return date.ToString("ddd MMM dd");
}
default:
throw new FormatException();
}
}
I was expecting to be able to use it in the DateTime.ToString(string format, IFormatProvider provider)
method like so, but :
DateTime d = new DateTime(2000, 1, 2);
string s = d.ToString("mycustomformat", new MyDateFormatProvider());
In that example, running in the US Culture, the result is "00cu0Ao00or0aA"
, apparently because the standard DateTime format strings are being interpreted.
However, when I use the same class in the following way:
DateTime d = new DateTime(2000, 1, 2);
string s = String.Format(new MyDateFormatProvider(), "{0:mycustomformat}", d);
I get what I expect, namely "Sun Jan 02"
I don't understand the different results. Could someone explain?
Thanks!
The short explanation is that while
DateTime.ToString(string format, IFormatProvider provider)
lets you pass anything implementing IFormatProvider
as one of its parameters, it actually only supports 2 possible types implementing IFormatProvider
inside its code:
DateTimeFormatInfo
or CultureInfo
If your parameter cannot be casted (using as
) as either or those, the method will default to CurrentCulture
.
String.Format
is not limited by such bounds.