How to check exists culture in .NET

Question

I have this code, when I try to get not existed culture I get exception.
Is there exists method like TryGetCultureInfo, which return bool value? I don't want to use try-catch statement

CultureInfo culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(cultureCode);
if (culture == null)
{
    culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(DefaultCultureCode);
}

Answer 1

You could write a DoesCultureExist method returning a boolean value just like this:

private static bool DoesCultureExist(string cultureName)
{
    return CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures).Any(culture => string.Equals(culture.Name, cultureName, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase));
}

Answer 2

I think there's no such method. So you could just try-catch or check all installed cultures:

string cultureCode = "de-DE";
CultureInfo[] cultures = CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures & ~CultureTypes.NeutralCultures);
var culture = cultures.FirstOrDefault(c => c.Name.Equals(cultureCode, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
if (culture == null)
{
    culture = cultures.FirstOrDefault(c => c.Name.Equals(DefaultCultureCode, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
    if (culture == null)
        culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
}

But i would prefer the try-catch, i'm sure it is more efficient.

public bool TryGetCultureInfo(string cultureCode, string DefaultCultureCode, out CultureInfo culture)
{
    try
    {
        culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(cultureCode);
        return true;
    } catch(CultureNotFoundException)
    {
        if (DefaultCultureCode == null)
            culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
        else
        {
            try
            {
                culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(DefaultCultureCode);
            } catch (CultureNotFoundException)
            {
                culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Answer 3

If you want it to be fast you can use:

internal static class Culture
{
    private static readonly HashSet<string> CultureNames = CreateCultureNames();

    internal static bool Exists(string name)
    {
        return CultureNames.Contains(name);
    }

    private static HashSet<string> CreateCultureNames()
    {
        var cultureInfos = CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures)
                                      .Where(x => !string.IsNullOrEmpty(x.Name))
                                      .ToArray();
        var allNames = new HashSet<string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
        allNames.UnionWith(cultureInfos.Select(x => x.TwoLetterISOLanguageName));
        allNames.UnionWith(cultureInfos.Select(x => x.Name));
        return allNames;
    }
}

Answer 4

No, AFAIK is not possible. You can check first if the culture exists and in that case get it.

The following code shows how to do it:

    private static CultureInfo GetCulture(string name)
    {
        if (!CultureExists(name)) return null;

        return CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(name);
    }

    private static bool CultureExists(string name)
    {
        CultureInfo[] availableCultures =
            CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures);

        foreach (CultureInfo culture in availableCultures)
        {
            if (culture.Name.Equals(name))
                return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

Hope it helps