INFO: DateTimePicker CustomFormat Is Case-Sensitive

ID: Q186424

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 6.0

SUMMARY

The CustomFormat property of the DateTimePicker control is case-sensitive.

MORE INFORMATION

As an example, if you use a CustomFormat such as mm/dd/yy, you will get the correct day and year but not the month. This is because the symbol "mm" refers to minutes instead of months. Because all dates without a time-specified default to midnight, the hours, minutes, and seconds will all have a value of zero.

Therefore, you might get:


   00/29/98

instead of:


   04/29/98

as you might expect. To specify a month in the CustomFormat, use a capital letter "M."

Similarly, to see time on a 12-hour clock, use a lower case "h" for hours. Or use upper-case "H" for hours to view time on a 24-hour clock.

If you want to include any literal text in your custom format, it should be enclosed in single quotes. While many characters will display correctly without using single quotes, such as spaces, slashes, digits, etc., the quotes are recommended to ensure a proper format. If you want to have a single quote display in your format, use two single quotes together. Also, only three 'y' characters are required for a four-digit year, but it is also fine to use four or more 'y' characters for year because the extras are ignored.

The CustomFormat property is a String. So, when setting it in code, the entire custom format must be enclosed in a pair of double quotes. For example:


   DTPicker1.CustomFormat = "'Today''s date is' MMM d, yyy"

Step-by-Step Example

Create a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default. Select Components from the Project menu, check "Microsoft Windows Common Controls-2 6.0," and then click OK.

Add a DTPicker control to Form1.

Set the control's Format property to 3-dtpCustom.

Enter a custom format into the control's CustomFormat property.

Add the following code to the Form's module:


      Private Sub Form_Load()
         DTPicker1.Value = "May 6, 1998 23:05:30"
      End Sub

Run the project and notice the format of the date.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 using different custom formats.

The following table describes the results for some sample CustomFormats:


   CustomFormat              Display
   ------------              -------

   mm/dd/yy                  00/06/98
   MM'/'d'/'yyy              05/6/1998
   MM/dd/yyyyyy              05/06/1998
   MM-DD-YY                  05-DD-YY
   'Today is 'MMM d, yyy     Today is May 6, 1998
   MMM ''''yy                May '98  (pair of single quotes within
                                      single quotes)
   hh:mm tt                  11:05 PM
   HH:mm:ss                  23:05:30
   MMMM d h:m tt             May 5 11: 5 PM

REFERENCES

Search On-line Help for DateTimePicker and select the first topic, "Using the DateTimePicker Control." The discussion of the CustomFormat property lists the supported format strings and their effects.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q187233 BETA-BUG: DateTimePicker's CustomFormat May Be Ignored

Additional query words: kbDSupport kbDSD kbCtrl kbUsage kbVB600

Keywords : kbGrpVB
Version :
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo