DateTime.ToString()

I am using the C# .NET Datetime class DateTime and taking the default when converting to a string DateTime.ToString().

When i run it under a user i get the U.S. format - month then day, but when i run it on the SAME machine started up as a service, i get the European format - day then month?

why is that? when i run it under services, it is running under a different user. Could that be why? I thought the DateTime default locale was machine based rather than user based?

Not sure about the details regarding the locale but your best bet may be to define the exact format you want in the ToString() method.

this is exactly what i did.
but i was curious if the default is tied to the user or by machine.

It could be. Under service, there is no GUI, so no UI culture is set. If the format of the date matter, it is stronly recommended to specify a format string and a culture if calling ToString().

The simplies way how to to be sure in which format the date will be is this:

Code:

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DateTime.Now.ToString(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

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InvariantCulture is associated with the English language but not with any country/region.

You could also do the next thing

Code:

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DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
MessageBox.Show(dt.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy"));

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gives a message that looks like 25-09-2008

Code:

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DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
MessageBox.Show(dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy"));

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gives a message that looks like 09-25-2008

try this:

Code:

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            DateTime datetime = DateTime.Now;
            Console.WriteLine(datetime.ToString("MMM dd yyyy"));

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output:
Sep 25 2008

Touraj Ebrahimi [toraj_e] [at] [yahoo] [dot] [com]

To unravel the mystery just dump the CultureInfo settings to the event log when running as a service or to the console or file if running under a user account.

how do i dump the cultureInfo info? what is the C# .NET class/method to do this?

Use Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture or Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture to retrieve the current CultureInfo. See CultureInfo in Msdn on how to dump the values.