View Category
Dates
Parsing

Parse a date and time from a string

Given the string "2008-05-06 13:29", parse it as a date representing 6th March, 2008 1:29:00pm in the local time zone.
ruby
# With timezone info
puts Time.parse('2008-05-06 13:29')
csharp
DateTime parsedDate = DateTime.Parse("2008-05-06 13:29");
// Ideally, you would catch the potential FormatException or use DateTime.TryParse in production code.
cpp
DateTimeOffset^ dateTime = DateTimeOffset::Parse("2008-05-06 13:29");

// Use format specifiers to appropriately format string
// 1. Default culture
Console::WriteLine("{0}", dateTime->ToString("d MMMM, yyyy h:mm:sstt"));

// 2. Nominated culture
Console::WriteLine("{0}", dateTime->ToString("d MMMM, yyyy h:mm:sstt"), Globalization::CultureInfo::CreateSpecificCulture("en-us"));
DateTimeOffset^ dateTime = DateTimeOffset::Parse("2008-05-06 13:29");

// Customize date/time string
Text::StringBuilder^ dsb = gcnew Text::StringBuilder(40);
dsb->Append(dateTime->ToString("%d"))->Append("th ")->Append(dateTime->ToString("MMMM, yyyy h:mm:ss"))->Append(dateTime->ToString("tt")->ToLower());

Console::WriteLine("{0}", dsb);
Printing

Display information about a date

Display the day of month, day of year, month name and day name of the day 8 days from now.
ruby
require 'date'

next_week = Date.today + 8

puts next_week.day # day of month
puts next_week.yday # day of year
puts next_week.strftime('%B') # month name
puts next_week.strftime('%A') # day name
csharp
DateTime date = DateTime.Today.AddDays(8);

Console.WriteLine("Day of month: " + date.Day);
Console.WriteLine("Day of year: " + date.DayOfYear);
Console.WriteLine("Month name: " + date.ToString("MMMM"));
Console.WriteLine("Day name: " + date.ToString("dddd"));

// The two ToString calls will use the current locale.
// To get localised month and day names, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8tfzyc64.aspx
cpp
QDate dateEightDaysFromNow = QDate::currentDate().addDays(8);

Display a date in different locales

Display a language/locale friendly version of New Year's Day for 2009 for several languages/locales. E.g. for languages English, French, German, Italian, Dutch the output might be something like:

Thursday, January 1, 2009
jeudi 1 janvier 2009
giovedì 1 gennaio 2009
Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009
donderdag 1 januari 2009

(Indicate in comments where possible if any language specific or operating system configuration needs to be in place.)
csharp
using System.Globalization;

DateTime newYearsDay = new DateTime(2009, 1, 1);
CultureInfo[] locales = {
CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US"),
CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("fr-FR"),
CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("de-DE"),
CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("it-IT"),
CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("nl-NL")
};

foreach (CultureInfo locale in locales)
{
Console.WriteLine(newYearsDay.ToString("D", locale));
}
cpp
QList<QLocale::Language> locales;
locales << QLocale::English
<< QLocale::French
<< QLocale::German
<< QLocale::Italian
<< QLocale::Dutch;

QDate date(2009, 1, 1);
foreach (QLocale::Language ll, locales)
{
QLocale::setDefault(ll);
qDebug() << date.toString(Qt::DefaultLocaleLongDate);
}
Creation

Display the current date and time

Create a Date object representing the current date and time. Print it out.
If you can also do this without creating a Date object you can show that too.
ruby
puts DateTime.now
csharp
// Creating a variable first:
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine(now);

// Without creating a variable:
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
cpp
QDate now = QDate::currentData();
qDebug() << now.toString();
time_t date = time(0);
cout << ctime(&date);