Set the DateFormat in Global.asax

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How do you centrally control the DateFormat in your ASP.NET application? So for example if you want to display the date in a dd-MM-yyyy format on each page of your application without much efforts, how would you do it?

Use the Global.asax!

The following code:

Response.Write("Today's Date Is :" +
    DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString());

produces the result shown below (mm/dd/yyyy):

Now to convert this dateformat 'centrally' to ‘dd-mm-yyyy’, follow these steps:

Create a new Global.asax file, if you do not have one in your web application. Import the following namespaces as shown here:

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Globalization" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Threading" %>

Now in the Application_BeginRequest(), write the following code:

C#

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    CultureInfo cInfo = new CultureInfo("en-IN");
    cInfo.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MM-yyyy";
    cInfo.DateTimeFormat.DateSeparator = "-";
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = cInfo;
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = cInfo;
}

VB.NET

Protected Sub Application_BeginRequest(ByVal sender As Object, _
                                       ByVal e As EventArgs)
    Dim cInfo As New CultureInfo("en-IN")
    cInfo.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern = "dd-MM-yyyy"
    cInfo.DateTimeFormat.DateSeparator = "-"
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = cInfo
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = cInfo
End Sub

Now when you run the same piece of code in any of your pages

Response.Write("Today's Date Is :" +
    DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString());

you get the following output:

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, Developer Technologies MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) is the founder and contributor for DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He is the Chief Editor of a Developer Magazine called DNC Magazine. He has also authored two Books - 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls. and The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Follow him on twitter @suprotimagarwal.