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DateTime::ToString Method

Converts the value of the current DateTime object to its equivalent string representation.

Namespace:  System
Assembly:  mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

public:
virtual String^ ToString() override

Return Value

Type: System::String
A string representation of the value of the current DateTime object.

ExceptionCondition
ArgumentOutOfRangeException

The date and time is outside the range of dates supported by the calendar used by the current culture.

The value of the current DateTime object is formatted using the general date and time format specifier ('G').

This method uses formatting information derived from the current culture. In particular, it combines the custom format strings returned by the ShortDatePattern and LongTimePattern properties of the DateTimeFormatInfo object returned by the Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat property. For more information, see CultureInfo::CurrentCulture. Other overloads of the ToString method enable you to specify the culture whose formatting to use and to define the output pattern of the DateTime value.

Notes to Callers

The ToString() method returns the string representation of the date and time in the calendar used by the current culture. If the value of the current DateTime instance is earlier than Calendar::MinSupportedDateTime or later than Calendar::MaxSupportedDateTime, the method throws an ArgumentOutOfRangeException. The following example provides an illustration. It attempts to format a date that is outside the range of the HijriCalendar class when the current culture is Arabic (Syria).

No code example is currently available or this language may not be supported.

The following example illustrates how the string representation of a DateTime value returned by the ToString() method depends on the thread current culture. It changes the current thread culture from en-US to fr-FR to ja-JP. and in each case calls the ToString() method to return the string representation of a date and time value using that culture.

No code example is currently available or this language may not be supported.

.NET Framework

Supported in: 4, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0

.NET Framework Client Profile

Supported in: 4, 3.5 SP1

Portable Class Library

Supported in: Portable Class Library

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows XP SP2 x64 Edition, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.
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