DateTime ToString(“dd/MM/yyyy”) returns dd.MM.yyyy

Question

I have also tried shielding the \'/\' symbol in the formatting string, but it didn\'t quite work. My final goal is to get the date with the \'/\' symbols as separators. I g

Answer 1

This works (note the InvariantCulture):

DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

If a CultureInfo is not specified, the CurrentCulture will be used. If this is a culture that doesn't use slashes as separators in dates it is replaced by whatever the actual culture date separator is.

Answer 2

string s = dt.ToString("dd/M/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

Answer 3

This is because of the way ToString works by default, in accordance with the current culture:

This method uses formatting information derived from the current culture.

So, override that:

string date = dt.ToString("dd/M/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

Answer 4

The / character in date/time format strings stands for "whatever the date separator of the format provider is". Since you do not supply a format provider Thread.CurrentCulture is used, and in your case the current culture uses . as the date separator.

If you want to use a literal slash, place it inside single quotes:

dateTime.ToString("dd'/'MM'/'yyyy");

Alternatively, you could specify a format provider where the date separator is /:

dateTime.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

All of the above is documented on MSDN.

See the difference in a live example.