I am setting the locale of my .net application via:
string userLocale = Web.Helpers.LocaleHelpers.GetBestRFC3066Locale(this.Context.Request.UserLanguages);
if (userLocale != String.Empty)
{
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(userLocale);
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(userLocale);
}
This works well, so my dates will be displayed in the format based upon the locale i.e.
12/10/2009 for en-gb
and
10/12/2009 for us
However when I persist my dates via LinqToSql I need to store these dates in a common format.
Currently when a U.S. user is running the app the date stored in the DB is in U.S. format and when an U.K. user uses the app, its in a U.K. format.
Any suggestions on how best to achieve this?
Store the date as a datetime value in SQL Server. Then you don't run into a conversion problem.
Brannon has the right solution there. Once you have a variable in a datetime format in SQL you can convert it to other datetime formats using the CONVERT T-SQL keyword
Related
currently, i have a datetime object
DateTime theDateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(dateAndTime, "d MMMM yyyy hh:mm tt", provider);
which successfully converts it into a datetime (from a string) to become for example :
7/6/2012 9:30:00 AM
How do i convert this to become 2012/07/06 09:30:00 (24hr format)? So that i can insert it into the database using C#??
PS: I'm using Sybase SQL Anywhere 12, and from what I've read, they neeed the format to be in year/months/day and the time to be in 24hr format right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The DateTime itself does not have a format. The date and time are stored internally as a number. Usually the classes of the database provider take care of converting a DateTime to the correct format.
If Sybase will only accept the date formatted as a string you will need to use the DateTime.ToString method and format it with the correct format string.
How are you building your insert command? Are you using database parameters or just building a string containing the insert statement?
SQL Anywhere 12 has a default date format of YYYY-MM-DD HH:NN:SS.SSS
This can be configured/changed with the timestamp_format database option however:
timestamp_format option
The setting can be permanently changed through SQL like:
SET OPTION PUBLIC.timestamp_format = '<format here>';
Or temporarily changed (per connection basis) like:
SET TEMPORARY OPTION timestamp_format = '<format here>';
Of course, if you already have a datetime object in your code, you should be able to pass the value into a parameterized query. It doesn't have to be passed as a string.
I am developing an application using ASP.NET (C#) and SQLServer 2008. In my database i have a field DepositDate and datatype is "DATE". On my data entry form i am taking dates using jquery datepicker and its returning date in textbox as dd/mm/yyyy format as per user requirement whereas i noticed in database its keeping date values as yyyy-mm-dd..i am confused.
While saving record i am getting not a valid date time as the only available conversion format is Convert.ToDateTime and my data requirement is DATE only.
Can anyone suggest solution how to deal with it.?
here is the code
DateTime thedate = DateTime.Parse(txt_IDate.Text);
DateTime mdate = DateTime.Parse(txt_Mdate.Text);
db.AddInParameter(cmd, "#SIssueDate", System.Data.DbType.Date);
db.SetParameterValue(cmd, "#SIssueDate", thedate.ToShortDateString());
db.AddInParameter(cmd, "#SMaturityDate", System.Data.DbType.DateTime);
db.SetParameterValue(cmd, "#SMaturityDate", mdate.ToShortDateString());
Why are you setting the parameter values to strings in the first place? Just use the DateTime values themselves:
db.AddInParameter(cmd, "#SIssueDate", DbType.Date);
db.SetParameterValue(cmd, "#SIssueDate", thedate);
db.AddInParameter(cmd, "#SMaturityDate", DbType.DateTime);
db.SetParameterValue(cmd, "#SMaturityDate", mdate);
I doubt that your database is storing the values in any particular string format... they're not strings, they're dates. It's like asking whether a database stores an integer in a hex or decimal format... it just stores the number.
Basically, you need to parse the user's input data in the appropriate format coming in (which presumably you're already doing) and then format it again when you fetch it. Aside from the presentation layer, you should only ever think of it as a date value, without any associated format.
It may be helpful to imagine two users from different countries, who each view a list of dates. The would each want to see those dates in a format appropriate for their culture - so they may see different representations, but they'd be seeing the same actual dates.
If that suits You, You can do it like thedate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") and You will get only 2011-01-20
I'm using MS SQL 2000, VS2008, MVC and C#.
I'm trying to insert and update some data using stored procedures.
Some columns are of type datetime.
Regional settings on both server and client are set to Dutch (Belgium)
This means the default date format is dd/mm/yyyy.
When i try to insert or update with a date of eg. 28/03/2009, I get following errors:
Insert:
Error converting data type nvarchar to datetime
Update:
The conversion of a char data type to a datetime data type resulted in an out-of-range datetime value
When I try with a date like 01/03/2009, I get no errors but the date is saved as 03/01/2009, which is the US date format.
This is typical behaviour for problems with regional settings. But both are set to Dutch (Belgium).
Why does it save dates in the US format?
What am i missing here?
Thanks!
Stijn
You should be inserting data into the database using a DateTime object, not a string. Your client-side code should convert the client's date entry to a DateTime object using the client's regional settings, then the DateTime struct should be added to the parameter that is ultimately sent into the database.
The SQL Instance has it's own locale setting, by default "us_english"
Now, this usually happens if you pushing using varchar rather than native datetime to store data values. If your code/tables use datetime columns and you define parameters as datetime then you won't get errors.
i had this problem too, its something to do with the date format for you SQL server,
i solved it by formatting the date string to be inserted like so
DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm")
hope that helps
All above suggestions are correct but I find if you are adding a datetime as a string/varchar the safest way is in the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
So eg.
Update MyTable
Set MyDate = '2010-03-01'
I have an application in asp.net which worked fine untill recently when i changed the datetime format in Regional and Language Settings in Control Panel.
The date time format was default when i installed XP. I chose Indian standard time while installing XP.
I changed the date time format to dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss. And my application started to throw an exception whenever i tried to insert any datetime in to the table.
The exception i get is:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Error converting data type varchar to datetime.
Please help me on this
Hard to know exactly what's going on without seeing the code that's throwing. However, if you need to communicate dates to SQL Server, it is generally good practice to use the ISO 8601 standard for representation because it is unambiguous and locale-independent. The most important formats are:
yyyy-MM-dd for dates
hh:mm:ss for time
yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss for date/time
My guess is that you have a query that's sending over dates in the current locale, and the locale on the server does not match.
Edit: And for the record, this doesn't preclude anything that Rob said in his answer, i.e. try to avoid passing hard-coded dates or hard-coded SQL at all. This only applies if you need to for some reason.
Edit 2: I've been informed that the yyyy-MM-dd format can still be wrong for some locales; so instead of this, if you need to pass in a literal date string, you should instead use yyyyMMdd.
As per my comment, you'll probably want to make sure you're using code that behaves in a similar way to the code below (i.e. using parameters rather than string concatenation)
var myConnectionString = "connection string goes here";
var myDateValue = DateTime.Now;
using (var connection = new SqlConnection(myConnectionString))
{
using (var command = new SqlCommand("SELECT COUNT(1) FROM dbo.table WHERE datecolumn = #datevalue", connection))
{
var dateValueParameter = new SqlParameter("#datevalue", myDateValue);
command.Parameters.Add(dateValueParameter);
var result = Convert.ToInt32(command.ExecuteScalar());
}
}
Try adding "Current Language=YourLanguage" to the SQL server connection string. Where YourLanguage is the language you want SQL to use when reading values such as the dates.
You can see a list of all languages supported by SQL by executing the following SQL command:
select * from master.dbo.syslanguages
I've found a similar question on stack overflow, but it didn't really answer the question I have. I need to make sure that my asp.net application is formatting the date dd/mm/yyyy the same as my SQL Server 2005.
How do I verify the date culture (if that's what it's called) of the server matches how I've programmed my app? Are there specific database settings and OS settings? Is it table-specific? I don't want to transpose my days and months.
thank you
When you get a DateTime out of the database, it should be in a non-cultured format (like the DateTime object, based on the number of ticks since a certain date). It is only when you are converting that value into a string that you need to be concerned with culture. In those cases, you can use yourDateTimeValue.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) to make sure that the information displays correctly.
I belive that if you use SqlParameters ADO.NET will take care of the rest and you don't have to worry about it. Besides, it's good for defending against SQL Injection attacks too! :)
** Watch out because SQL DateTime columns are non-nullable and their minimum value is 1/1/1753 while .net DateTimes are non-nullable with min values of 1/1/0001. **
If you're pulling data from a real DateTime column, by default it will always be in the same standard format. For saving the data to the column, you might want to specify the SqlDbType.DateTime in your parameter.
i ripped this off of http://bytes.com/forum/thread767920.html :
com.Parameters.Add("#adate", SqlDbType.DateTime).Value = DateTime.Now;
Well, if you keep datetime fields in the DB you shouldn't worry about it.
As long as you keep the dates in app strongly typed (DateTime variables) and send the dates through prepared statements with DBParameter/SqlParameter your DB will take them as is.
If you use strings to hold your dates in code, some casts will ensure you send the right values:
string sqlCmd = #"SELECT *
FROM MyTable
WHERE MyDateField = CONVERT(datetime, '{0}', 101)";
// assuming myDateString is a string with a date in the local format
sqlCmd = string.Format(sqlCmd,
Convert.ToDateTime(myDateString).ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
(the code is ugly, but hopefully it gets the point across)
As others have mentioned, you should be OK as far as storing datetimes culturally. What I would recommend is that you store all of your times as standard UTC time. In SQL Server 2005 and older there is no way to store time zone information, but if everything is stored in universal time, you should be OK because the time can be converted to the local time later on.
SQL Server 2008 does have some datatypes that are aware of time zones, and if you're using .NET 3.5 there are tools to assist with time zone handling/conversions.
Definitely keep times in universal format. This will make a world of a difference if you have to work in multiple time zones.