Format Date in Silverlight 4

In Silverlight 3, to format a date, you needed to write a Converter class that implemented the IValueConverter interface and you needed to implement the Convert and ConvertBack methods – something similar to the following:

public class DateConverter: IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType,
        object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        DateTime dt = (DateTime)value;
        return dt.ToShortDateString();
    }

    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType,
        object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        string str = value.ToString();
        DateTime dt = DateTime.MinValue;

        if (DateTime.TryParse(str, out dt))
        {
            return dt;
        }
        return value;
    }
}

You then needed to add a reference to your class and write the following markup to format the date

<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=SomeDate,
Converter={StaticResource DateConverter}}" />

Silverlight 4 introduces the StringFormat binding property that makes formatting absolutely simple. You can format a value using either a predefined format or a custom format and the best part is, you do not need to write a converter class.

So to format a date in “dd/MM/yyyy” format, all you need to do is write the following markup

<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=SomeDate, StringFormat='dd/MM/yyyy'}"/>

which will produce the output 18/05/2010. Simple is good!

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, ASP.NET Architecture MVP works as an Architect Consultant and provides consultancy on how to design and develop Web applications.

Suprotim is also the founder and primary contributor to DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He has also written an EBook 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls.

Follow him on twitter @suprotimagarwal