Introduction
A question which was recently asked on our forums is - how do I convert a date
to words?
This can be easily solved by using the method in my earlier article entitled
Converting Numbers To Words in C# (http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/b942f9/converting-numbers-to-words-in-C-Sharp/)
to convert the year, together with additional code to convert the day and month.
In this article, I'd therefore like to present a simple program which does all
this.
The program supports both the US and UK ways of writing dates. For example the
date, 29th February 2012, would typically be expressed as follows:
February Twenty Ninth Two Thousand Twelve (in the US )
The Twenty Ninth of February Two Thousand and Twelve (in the UK )
The program optionally supports the addition of the time to the date. This is
expressed in hours and minutes AM or PM. For example 17:45 would map to:
Five Forty Five PM
Seconds and milliseconds are ignored.
Source Code
using
System;
using
System.Threading;
using
System.Globalization;
class
Program
{
static void
Main()
{
// use US English culture throughout the
examples
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture
= CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-US");
string words;
DateTime dt =
DateTime.Now;
words = DateToText(dt, true,
false);
Console.WriteLine(words);
DateTime dt2 =
DateTime.Parse("07/27/2011 18:59:32");
words = DateToText(dt2, true,
true);
Console.WriteLine(words);
DateTime dt3 =
DateTime.Parse("02/29/2004 12:00");
words = DateToText(dt3, true,
false);
Console.WriteLine(words);
DateTime dt4 =
DateTime.Parse("01/06/1999");
words = DateToText(dt4, false,
true);
Console.WriteLine(words);
Console.ReadKey();
}
public static
string DateToText(DateTime
dt, bool includeTime,
bool isUK)
{
string[] ordinals =
{
"First",
"Second",
"Third",
"Fourth",
"Fifth",
"Sixth",
"Seventh",
"Eighth",
"Ninth",
"Tenth",
"Eleventh",
"Twelfth",
"Thirteenth",
"Fourteenth",
"Fifteenth",
"Sixteenth",
"Seventeenth",
"Eighteenth",
"Nineteenth",
"Twentieth",
"Twenty First",
"Twenty Second",
"Twenty Third",
"Twenty Fourth",
"Twenty Fifth",
"Twenty Sixth",
"Twenty Seventh",
"Twenty Eighth",
"Twenty Ninth",
"Thirtieth",
"Thirty First"
};
int day = dt.Day;
int month = dt.Month;
int year = dt.Year;
DateTime dtm =
new DateTime(1,
month, 1);
string date;
if (isUK)
{
date = "The " + ordinals[day - 1]
+ " of " + dtm.ToString("MMMM")
+ " " + NumberToText(year,
true);
}
else
{
date = dtm.ToString("MMMM") +
" " + ordinals[day - 1] +
" " + NumberToText(year,
false);
}
if (includeTime)
{
int hour = dt.Hour;
int minute = dt.Minute;
string ap =
"AM";
if (hour >= 12)
{
ap = "PM";
hour = hour - 12;
}
if (hour == 0) hour = 12;
string time = NumberToText(hour,
false);
if (minute > 0) time +=
" " + NumberToText(minute,
false);
time += " " + ap;
date += ", " + time;
}
return date;
}
public static
string NumberToText(int
number, bool isUK)
{
if (number == 0)
return "Zero";
string and = isUK ?
"and " : "";
// deals with UK or US numbering
if (number == -2147483648)
return "Minus Two
Billion One Hundred " + and +
"Forty Seven Million Four Hundred " +
and + "Eighty Three Thousand " +
"Six Hundred " + and +
"Forty Eight";
int[] num = new
int[4];
int first = 0;
int u, h, t;
System.Text.StringBuilder sb =
new System.Text.StringBuilder();
if (number < 0)
{
sb.Append("Minus ");
number = -number;
}
string[] words0 = {
"", "One ",
"Two ", "Three ",
"Four ", "Five ",
"Six ", "Seven ",
"Eight ", "Nine "
};
string[] words1 = {
"Ten ", "Eleven ",
"Twelve ",
"Thirteen ", "Fourteen ",
"Fifteen ",
"Sixteen ", "Seventeen ",
"Eighteen ",
"Nineteen " };
string[] words2 = {
"Twenty ",
"Thirty ", "Forty ",
"Fifty ", "Sixty
", "Seventy ",
"Eighty ",
"Ninety " };
string[] words3 = {
"Thousand ",
"Million ", "Billion " };
num[0] = number % 1000; // units
num[1] = number / 1000;
num[2] = number / 1000000;
num[1] = num[1] - 1000 * num[2]; // thousands
num[3] = number / 1000000000; //
billions
num[2] = num[2] - 1000 * num[3]; //
millions
for (int
i = 3; i > 0; i--)
{
if (num[i] != 0)
{
first = i;
break;
}
}
for (int
i = first; i >= 0; i--)
{
if (num[i] == 0)
continue;
u = num[i] % 10; // ones
t = num[i] / 10;
h = num[i] / 100; // hundreds
t = t - 10 * h; //
tens
if (h > 0)
sb.Append(words0[h] + "Hundred ");
if (u > 0 || t > 0)
{
if (h > 0 || i < first)
sb.Append(and);
if (t == 0)
sb.Append(words0[u]);
else if
(t == 1)
sb.Append(words1[u]);
else
sb.Append(words2[t - 2] + words0[u]);
}
if (i != 0) sb.Append(words3[i -
1]);
}
return sb.ToString().TrimEnd();
}
}
Results
![Dates.jpg]()
Conclusion
There are, of course, many ways in which one can write a date in words and this
program only deals with what I consider to be two of the commoner ones.
However, it would not be difficult to adjust the program to deal with other
formats.
The code for this article is also available as a download.