Custom Format Strings

You can customize the display of a DTP control using custom format strings. DTP controls support specified format characters that you can combine to create a format string. To assign the format string to the DTP control, use the DTM_SETFORMAT message.

You can add body text to the format string. For example, if you want the control to display the current date with the format "Today is: 04:22:31 Tuesday Mar 23, 1996", use the following format string: Today is: 'hh':'m':'s ddddMMMdd', 'yyy. Body text must be enclosed in single quotes.

Note that segments of nonformat characters in the preceding example are delimited by single quotation marks. Failure to surround body text in this way will result in unpredictable display by the DTP control.