adding quotes around date and time, c#

Question

I am currently using the following line:

w.Write(DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy,HH:mm:ss"));

and it gives and output like:

05/23/2011,14:24:54

What I need is quotations around the date and time, the output should look like this:

"05/23/2011","14:24:54"

any thoughts on how to "break up" datetime, and get quotes around each piece?

Answer 1

Try String.Format :

w.Write(String.Format("\"{0:MM/dd/yyyy}\",\"{0:HH:mm:ss}\"", DateTime.Now));

Answer 2

DateTime.Now.ToString("\\\"MM/dd/yyyy\\\",\\\"HH:mm:ss\\\"")

Answer 3

This will do the trick, too.

  string format = @"{0:\""MM/dd/yyyy\"",\""HH:mm:ss\""}" ;
  string s = string.Format(format,DateTime.Now) ;

as will this:

string format = @"{0:'\""'MM/dd/yyyy'\""','\""'HH:mm:ss'\""'}" ;
string s = string.Format(format,DateTime.Now) ;

and this

string format = @"{0:""\""""MM/dd/yyyy""\"""",""\""""HH:mm:ss""\""""}" ;
string s = string.Format(format,DateTime.Now) ;

The introduction of a literal double quote ( " ) or apostrophe ( ' ) in a DateTime or Numeric format strings introduces literal text. The embedded literal quote/apostrophe must be balanced — they act as an embedded quoted string literal in the format string. To get a double quote or apostrophe it needs to be preceded with a backslash.

John Sheehan's formatting cheatsheets makes note of this...feature, but insofar as I can tell, the CLR documentation is (and always has been) incorrect WRT this: the docs on custom date/time and numeric format strings just says that "[any other character] is copied to the result string unchanged.".

Answer 4

The following version, though obvious, will not work:

w.Write(DateTime.Now.ToString("\"MM/dd/yyyy\",\"HH:mm:ss\"")); 

This will output:

MM/dd/yyyy,HH:mm:ss

So don't do that.

Answer 5

        string part1 = DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
        string part2 = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss");
        Console.WriteLine("\""+part1+"\",\""+part2+"\"");

Works just fine. May not be the best way though

Answer 6

I'm not sure about the type of w but if it supports the standard set of Write overloads the following should work.

w.Write(@"""{0}""", DateTime.Now.ToString(@"MM/dd/yyyy"",""HH:mm:ss")));

If not then you can do the following

var msg = String.Format(@"""{0}""", DateTime.Now.ToString(@"MM/dd/yyyy"",""HH:mm:ss"))));
w.Write(msg);