System.Globalization Namespace

Contains classes that define culture-related information, including language, country/region, calendars in use, format patterns for dates, currency, and numbers, and sort order for strings. These classes are useful for writing globalized (internationalized) applications. Classes such as StringInfo and TextInfo provide advanced globalization functionalities, including surrogate support and text element processing.

Classes

Calendar

Represents time in divisions, such as weeks, months, and years.

CharUnicodeInfo

Retrieves information about a Unicode character. This class cannot be inherited.

ChineseLunisolarCalendar

Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated using the Chinese calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.

CompareInfo

Implements a set of methods for culture-sensitive string comparisons.

CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder

Defines a custom culture that is new or based on another culture and country/region. The custom culture can be installed on a computer and subsequently used by any application that is running on that computer. This class cannot be inherited.

CultureInfo

Provides information about a specific culture (called a locale for unmanaged code development). The information includes the names for the culture, the writing system, the calendar used, the sort order of strings, and formatting for dates and numbers.

CultureNotFoundException

The exception that is thrown when a method attempts to construct a culture that is not available.

DateTimeFormatInfo

Provides culture-specific information about the format of date and time values.

DaylightTime

Defines the period of daylight saving time.

EastAsianLunisolarCalendar

Represents a calendar that divides time into months, days, years, and eras, and has dates that are based on cycles of the sun and the moon.

GlobalizationExtensions

Provides globalization-related extension methods.

GregorianCalendar

Represents the Gregorian calendar.

HebrewCalendar

Represents the Hebrew calendar.

HijriCalendar

Represents the Hijri calendar.

IdnMapping

Supports the use of non-ASCII characters for Internet domain names. This class cannot be inherited.

ISOWeek

Provides static members to support the ISO week date that is part of the ISO 8601 date and time standard issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

JapaneseCalendar

Represents the Japanese calendar.

JapaneseLunisolarCalendar

Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated as for the Japanese calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.

JulianCalendar

Represents the Julian calendar.

KoreanCalendar

Represents the Korean calendar.

KoreanLunisolarCalendar

Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated using the Gregorian calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.

NumberFormatInfo

Provides culture-specific information for formatting and parsing numeric values.

PersianCalendar

Represents the Persian calendar.

RegionInfo

Contains information about the country/region.

SortKey

Represents the result of mapping a string to its sort key.

SortVersion

Provides information about the version of Unicode used to compare and order strings.

StringInfo

Provides functionality to split a string into text elements and to iterate through those text elements.

TaiwanCalendar

the Taiwan calendar.

TaiwanLunisolarCalendar

Represents the Taiwan lunisolar calendar. As for the Taiwan calendar, years are calculated using the Gregorian calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.

TextElementEnumerator

Enumerates the text elements of a string.

TextInfo

Defines text properties and behaviors, such as casing, that are specific to a writing system.

ThaiBuddhistCalendar

Represents the Thai Buddhist calendar.

UmAlQuraCalendar

Represents the Saudi Hijri (Um Al Qura) calendar.

Enums

CalendarAlgorithmType

Specifies whether a calendar is solar-based, lunar-based, or lunisolar-based.

CalendarWeekRule

Defines different rules for determining the first week of the year.

CompareOptions

Defines the string comparison options to use with CompareInfo.

CultureAndRegionModifiers

Specifies constants that define a CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder object.

CultureTypes

Defines the types of culture lists that can be retrieved using the GetCultures(CultureTypes) method.

DateTimeStyles

Defines the formatting options that customize string parsing for some date and time parsing methods.

DigitShapes

Specifies the culture-specific display of digits.

GregorianCalendarTypes

Defines the different language versions of the Gregorian calendar.

NumberStyles

Determines the styles permitted in numeric string arguments that are passed to the Parse and TryParse methods of the integral and floating-point numeric types.

TimeSpanStyles

Defines the formatting options that customize string parsing for the ParseExact and TryParseExact methods.

UnicodeCategory

Defines the Unicode category of a character.

Remarks

The following blogs include discussions of the System.Globalization namespace and its classes:

Two of the .NET types in this namespace, CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder and CultureAndRegionModifiers, are found in an assembly named sysglobl.dll. To successfully compile code that uses these types, add a reference to sysglobl.dll.