String.Format not converting integers correctly in arabic

Question

I have a problem with String.Format. The following code formats the string correctly apart from the first integer. Current culture is set to Iraqi arabic (ar-IQ):

int currentItem= 1;
string of= "من";
int count = 2;
string formatted = string.Format(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, "{0}{1}{2}", currentItem, of, count);

The text is formatted right to left and the 2 is converted to an arabic digit, but the 1 isn't.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The default behaviour for converting numeric values is "Context", which basically means if a number is proceeded by Arabic they display in Arabic (or another "non-Latin" character), if they're not then they display in "standard" European numbers.

You can change that behaviour quite easily though:

var culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
culture.NumberFormat.DigitSubstitution = DigitShapes.NativeNational; // Always use native characters
string formatted = string.Format(culture, "{0:d}{1:d}{2:d}", currentItem, of, count);

That should work as you expect - more details on MSDN.

Answer 2

var culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
culture.NumberFormat.DigitSubstitution = DigitShapes.NativeNational;

does not work, but the following works:

var culture = new CultureInfo("ar-SA");
culture.NumberFormat = new NumberFormatInfo();
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = culture;

Thanks for the hint!!!