How do format a date/time/number/currency in another locale? - windows

Question

How do i format something for another locale in Windows?
For example, in managed C# code, i would try to render a DateTime using en-US locale with:
String s = DateTime.Now.ToString(CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US"));
TextRenderer.DrawText(
e.Graphics, s, SystemFonts.IconTitleFont,
new Point(16, 16), SystemColors.ControlText);
And that works fine when my computer's locale is en-US:
It even works fine when my computer's locale is de-DE:
But it completely falls apart when my computer's locale is ps-AF:
Note: My sample code is in .NET, but can also be native.
Update: Attempting to set System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture to en-US before calling DrawText:
var oldCulture = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US");
try
{
// String s = DateTime.Now.ToString(CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US"));
String s = DateTime.Now.ToString();
TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, s, SystemFonts.IconTitleFont, new Point(16, 16), SystemColors.ControlText);
}
finally
{
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = oldCulture;
}
No help.
Nine, no help
Jack, no help
Eight, possible straight
King, possible flush
Ace, no help
Six, possible straight
Dave of love for the dealer
Ace bets.
Update Two:
From Michael Kaplan's blog entry:
Sometimes, GDI respects users (even if no one else does!)
GDI doesn't give a crap about formatting or really anything related to locales, with one single exception:
Digit Substitution
Any time you go to render text it will grab those digit substitution settings in the user locale (including the user override information) and use the info to decide how to display numbers.
And there is no way to override those settings at the level where GDI uses them.
i wonder how Chrome manages it. When i write digits here, in the stackoverflow question, Chrome renders them using latin digits:
0123456789
See:

Answer 1

What you are seeing is due to the digit substitution that occurs when your system's locale is ps-AF.
I believe that's OK -- Users of such a locale are used to seeing digits presented this way.
Normally the way this is done is slightly different, see here for example, but I don't actually think this should make any difference:
String s = DateTime.Now.ToString(new CultureInfo("en-US"));

Answer 2

An alternative is to set Thread.CurrentCulture to your desired locale.
I.e. do this:
Thread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
And you can then replace the first line of your code with this:
String s = DateTime.Now.ToString();
I am not quite sure, but I believe that this would solve the digit substitution issue as DrawText would now be based on the en-US culture, rather than ps-AF