Question

I have a problem with a c# assembly (.net 2.0 written using Visual studio 2005) that is installed on a UK server and should use UK regional settings.

What my code does is to convert a date in the form dd/MM/yyyy into utc. i.e. yyyy-mm-dd. The problem arose with dates like 16/02/2010 where the component failed to convert the date and returned Error. After debugging I realised that, for a strange reason, the CultureInfo returned by System.CultureInfo is en-US.

I can programatically change those settings using:

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-GB", false); 

and my code works fine.

However I don’t want to do that all the time as my system should be UK. Not US.
So, how do I change the default culture for .Net framework to be by default en-GB instead of en-US ?

For information:

• I have tried to update the machine.config file and specify culture=en-GB for the globalization section (it was set to neutral) but it doesn’t work either [have done that for 1.1 and 2.0] but it’s possible I have not changed it correctly.
• I have verified my windows regional settings and they are definitely set-up to UK with dates as dd/MM/yyyy
• I am running in a Virtual server and have verified my host system. It too is set to UK

Edit:

A bit of extra detail about the context. The assembly in question is being called via COM interop from a native C++ third party component that is running as a COM+ application.

Answer 1

You do not have to change the CurrentCulture to do the transformation. If you are certain that the date is in the form of “dd/MM/yyyy” you could use

DateTime dtTemp = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, "dd/MM/yyyy", null) // in order not to have to specify a FormatProvider

and then use

dtTemp.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd")

This way you will not have a problem no matter what the CurrentCulture is. However, if you are not certain that the Date is of the form “dd/MM/yyyy” rather it is based on the CurrentCulture short date format, then you should use

DateTime dtTemp = DateTime(dateString, CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern, CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat);