How to list all month names, e.g. for a combo?

Question

At the moment I'm creating a DateTime for each month and formatting it to only include the month.
Is there another or any better way to do this?

Solution 1

You can use the DateTimeFormatInfo to get that information:

// Will return January
string name = DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.GetMonthName(1);

or to get all names:

string[] names = DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.MonthNames;

You can also instantiate a new DateTimeFormatInfo based on a CultureInfo with DateTimeFormatInfo.GetInstance or you can use the current culture's CultureInfo.DateTimeFormat property.

var dateFormatInfo = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-GB").DateTimeFormat;

Keep in mind that calendars in .Net support up to 13 months, thus you will get an extra empty string at the end for calendars with only 12 months (such as those found in en-US or fr for example).

Solution 2

This method will allow you to apply a list of key value pairs of months to their int counterparts. We generate it with a single line using Enumerable Ranges and LINQ. Hooray, LINQ code-golfing!

var months = Enumerable.Range(1, 12).Select(i => new { I = i, M = DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.GetMonthName(i) });

To apply it to an ASP dropdown list:

// <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="ddlMonths" />
ddlMonths.DataSource = months;
ddlMonths.DataTextField = "M";
ddlMonths.DataValueField = "I";
ddlMonths.DataBind();

Solution 3

You can use the following to return an array of string containing the month names

System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames

Solution 4

They're defined as an array in the Globalization namespaces.

using System.Globalization;

for (int i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
   Console.WriteLine(CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames[i]);
}

Solution 5

public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Months
{
  get
  {
    return Enumerable.Range(1, 12).Select(x => new SelectListItem
    {
      Value = x.ToString(),
      Text = DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.GetMonthName(x)
    });
  }
}

View more solutions

Comments

[Greg]

For some reason the code I grabbed was using the Invariant name for the ListItem.Value property. Not sure why, but you might want to use an integer for that instead.

[Sarawut Positwinyu]

I use CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName

[The Muffin Man]

Your second example won't compile. You need to create a new instance of DateTimeFormatInfo or call its GetInstance() method from the static class .e.g. new DateTimeFormatInfo().MonthNames; or DateTimeFormatInfo.GetInstance().MonthNames

[Sam]

I've corrected the issues noted by the comments (in the future you can just edit the post).

[John]

Like the use of Enumerable.Range , I'm going to use this with a List of MVC SelectListItems

[RoLYroLLs]

up'd for that Where clause

[CompuChip]

Note: I had to use the answer with the Enumerable.Range because DateTimeFormatInfo.MonthNames returns an array with 13 elements so if you .Select on that you get an empty item at the end.

[ProfK]

Very nice LINQ.

[Andrew Truckle]

Thanks! TakeWhile was just what I needed. :)