WPF StringFormat={0:C} showing as dollars

Question

Why does this line of code

<TextBlock Text="{Binding Net, StringFormat=c}"/>

Output the result as $xx.xx when all my regional settings are set to UK. I expect it to output it as £xx.xx. Any ideas? I have tried different variations of the stringformat including StringFormat={}{0:C} but still get the same result.

Thanks for looking.

Africa

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this has been fixed in .NET 4, but WPF has never picked up the current culture when rendering things like currency or dates. It's something I consider a massive oversight, but thankfully is easily corrected.

In your App class:

protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
    FrameworkElement.LanguageProperty.OverrideMetadata(
        typeof(FrameworkElement),
        new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(
            XmlLanguage.GetLanguage(
            CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.IetfLanguageTag)));
    base.OnStartup(e);
 }

See this excellent post for more information.

Keyek

Actually, according to this bug report at MS Connect, it is not a bug, but a feature as MS states... Pretty weird feature, I would say, but it might be good to know that this is unlikely to be "fixed" in a future version. – Monodic

This won't pick up custom changes to the regional settings though (i.e. I'm using German, but with a sane date format [ISO 8601]). Is there a workaround for that too? – Ciri

In my case I didn't use it inside "OnStartUp" event. Just putting it before my "trouble window" loaded, was just enough. Thank you. – Median

The bug report link to MS Connect is gone, because MS Connect is gone. Is there a valid link to the MS Connect discussion about invariant culture as a feature in WPF? – Predominant

Answer 2

I do Language="en-GB" in the main window e.g.

<Window x:Class="AllocateWPF.Vouchers"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Test" Height="692" Width="1000" Language="en-GB">

Chert

Life saver, I love you. To show Euro sign and dots intead of commas (Italian culture): Language="it-IT" in XAML, then format the string with "€ #,##0.00" – Infinitive

In case you need to format a DataGridTextColumn, use this: Binding="{Binding Path=PrezzoListino, ConverterCulture='it-IT', StringFormat='\{0:€ #,##0.00\}'}" in the DataGridTextColumn. Example is for Italian culture, Euro currency and "PrezzoListino" field to bind to. – Infinitive

Answer 3

What works for me:
1) In app.xaml override OnStartup() and add - System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("et-EE");

2) Define in XAML @ Window level - xmlns:sysglb="clr-namespace:System.Globalization;assembly=mscorlib"

3) In XAML - <TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Price, StringFormat='{}{0:C}', ConverterCulture={x:Static sysglb:CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture}}" />

This correctly picks up any custom regional settings. Although I'm using a manually created CultureInfo in the first step, I'm sure it's possible to pass in one of the static types - eg. System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture (I haven't tested it though...)

Diaspore

This did solve the custom settings problem. For step 1 I used "= new CultureInfo(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.IetfLanguageTag)" instead of hard-coding it. – Quinque