CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netdatetimestring-formattingiso8601
user2864740
user2864740

Reputation: 61875

Is there a "short" format specifier for an ISO 8601 time and offset without fractional seconds?

Is there a "short[er]" format specifier for an ISO-8601 representation without the [optional] fractional seconds?

That is, given

var n = DateTimeOffset.Now;

// short "s" format  -  2014-02-14T10:41:49
n.ToString("s")
// short "o" format  -  2014-02-14T10:41:49.7200222-08:00
n.ToString("o")

// desired output
// custom format    -  2014-02-14T10:41:49-08:30
n.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz")

is there a "short[er]" format specifier for the last case?

Context clarification: I'm using the formats primarily with string.Format, where the long format can quickly muddle a format string.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3683

Answers (1)

LeffeBrune
LeffeBrune

Reputation: 3477

Sorry, misunderstood the question the first time around. IMHO an extension method would work the best:

class Program {    
    static void Main() {
        Console.WriteLine(DateTimeOffset.Now.ToCustomString());
    }
}

static class DateHelper {
    public static string ToCustomString(this DateTimeOffset time) {
        return time.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    }
}

you need to specify CultureInfo.InvariantCulture otherwise CurrentCulture will be used which will substitute : for the user's current regional time component separator which may not be a colon, and that would result in a non ISO 8601-compliant string.

If you need to use it in longer strings with multiple substitution fields maybe look into custom format providers.

Upvotes: 1

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