Question

I have created a very simple dropdownbox:

<asp:DropDownList ID="MonthDropDown" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True">
</asp:DropDownList>

Code Behind:

MonthDropDown.DataSource = Enumerable.Range(1, 12);
MonthDropDown.SelectedIndex = DateTime.Now.Month;
MonthDropDown.DataBind();

Is there any way to get the MonthDropDown(my dropdownbox) to display name of month, instead of the numeric value of the month. I’m thinking it could be something like

DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.GetMonthName(MonthDropDown.SelectedIndex)?

Answer 1

This is culture-specific of course, so look for it under the CultureInfo class:

string monthName = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(monthIndex);

You can set the month names as the values in the ListBox:

MonthDropDown.DataSource = Enumerable.Range(1, 12)
    .Select(monthIndex => 
        CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(monthIndex))
    .ToArray();

You can also use keys/values if you still want the selected value to be the index:

MonthDropDown.DataSource = Enumerable.Range(1, 12)
    .Select(monthIndex=> 
        new ListItem(
            CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(monthIndex), 
            monthIndex.ToString()))
    .ToArray();