I’m working in a web application using VB.NET. There is also VisualBasic code mixed in it, in particular the Date variable and the Month function of VB.
The problem is this part:
Month('10/01/2008')
On the servers, I get 10 (October) as the month (which is supposed to be correct). On my machine, I get 1 (January) (which is supposed to be wrong).
Two of my colleagues (on their own machines) get different answers, one got 1, the other got 10.
The question is, why is this so?
On my end, I can solve the problem by using .NET’s DateTime’s Parse (or ParseExact) function to force everything to be ‘dd/MM/yyyy’ format. This works. I’m just wondering why there’s an inconsistency.
Extra info: I know the parameter for Month function is supposed to be a Date variable. The code used a string as parameter, and Option Strict was off, and the developers mainly let VB do its own conversion thing. (Legacy code maintenance has a lot of inertia…)
If it helps, the version of Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll on the servers is 7.10.6310.4 (under the Framework folder v1.1.4322). The version on mine (and my 2 colleagues’) machine is 7.10.6001.4.
Edit: Regional settings for all machines already set to dd/MM/yyyy format (short date format).
This normally has to do with the regional settings, and more specifically the date/time formats. If you set these formats so that they are all the same on the machines you’re testing on, the results should be consistent.
Your idea of using ParseExact is definitely the better solution to go with, IMHO.