Setting Date-Time Picker Custom Formats

You can set the format for the dates and times displayed in date-time pickers customizing that format as you like; for example, you can display (and so let the user set by editing) just dates, or just times, or both. To set a custom format, you set the date-time control's Format property to DateTimePickerFormat.Custom, then you assign a custom format string to the CustomFormat property.

You create a custom format string using these items:

• d— The one or two-digit day.

• dd— The two-digit day. Note that single-digit day values are preceded by a zero.

• ddd— The three-character day-of-week abbreviation.

• dddd— The full day-of-week name.

• h— The one- or two-digit hour in 12-hour format.

• hh— The two-digit hour in 12-hour format. Note that single-digit values are preceded by a zero.

• H— The one- or two-digit hour in 24-hour format.

• HH— The two-digit hour in 24-hour format. Note that single-digit values are preceded by a zero.

• m— The one- or two-digit minute.

• mm— The two-digit minute. Note that single-digit values are preceded by a zero.

• M— The one- or two-digit month number.

• MM— The two-digit month number. Note that single-digit values are preceded by a zero.

• MMM— The three-character month abbreviation.

• MMMM— The full month name.

• s— The one- or two-digit seconds.

• ss— The two-digit seconds. Note that single-digit values are preceded by a zero.

• t— The one-letter AM/PM abbreviation ("AM" is displayed as "A").

• tt— The two-letter AM/PM abbreviation ("AM" is displayed as "AM").

• y— The one-digit year (2002 is displayed as "2").

• yy— The last two digits of the year (2002 is displayed as "02").

• yyyy— The full year (2002 is displayed as "2002").

To display literals, such as: or /, you must escape them by surrounding them in single quotes. For example, to display the date and time in the format 12/01/2002 12:00 PM, the CustomFormat property should be set to MM'/'dd'/'yyyy hh':'mm tt.

Here's another example; in this case, I'm creating the display you see in Figure 8.14 in the date-time picker at the top of the form. This will display dates and times in the format "September 27 12:00:00 PM":

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    DateTimePicker1.Format = DateTimePickerFormat.Custom
    DateTimePicker1.CustomFormat = "MMMM dd hh:mm:ss tt"
End Sub