Culture-Sensitive VB.NET Method

using System

Public Function ToString() As String

Public Function ToString(ByVal provider As IFormatProvider) As String

Public Function ToString(ByVal format As String) As String

Public Function ToString(ByVal format As String, provider As IFormatProvider) As String

Internationalization (I18n) Method Overview

Frequently you will want to display to your users a string version of a date, number or other data type within your code. In these cases you will call the ToString() method on that variable to generate a display string.

For more information see Microsoft's MSDN online documentation here and here.

I18n Issues

Most base classes within VB.NET override this method, allowing the user to specify a format string along with a CultureInfo object (which is a subclass of IFormatProvider) to generate a string formatted according to certain culture-specific rules. If no CultureInfo is provided, ToString() will draw from the CultureInfo object that has been set in the current thread. Globalyzer detects these calls to prompt developers to double check that they are using the correct CultureInfo to perform this formatting functionality.

Usage

The following code example uses the CultureInfo class to specify the culture that the ToString() method and format string will use. This code creates a new instance of the CultureInfo class called MyCulture and initializes it to the French culture using the string fr-FR. This object is passed to the ToString() method with the C string format specifier to produce a French monetary value.

	Dim MyInt As Integer
	Dim MyCulture As New CultureInfo("fr-FR")
	Dim MyString As String 
	MyInt = 100
	MyString = MyInt.ToString("C", MyCulture)
	Console.WriteLine(MyString)
			

The following table lists the format characters available to users who call the ToString() method: