With NodaTime, how do I format a ZonedDateTime in current culture

Question

I have a ZonedDateTime and I want to display it such that the datetime is formatted with the short date and short time configured on the workstation followed by the offset (something like... 05/01/2005 02:30 PM -05:00). I expected something like this would work...

var patternDateTimeOffset = 
   ZonedDateTimePattern.CreateWithCurrentCulture("g o<m>", DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb);
lblOriginalDateTimeAndOffsetVal.Text = patternDateTimeOffset.Format(zonedDateTime);

BUT, it appears that the "g" is not supported in ZonedDateTimePattern the way it is in LocalDateTimePattern. The code above throws a NodaTime.Text.InvalidPatternException.

I could replace the "g" with "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm", but then it's not using the current culture.

I could use a LocalDateTimePattern for the datetime and then concatenate the offset using the ZonedDateTimePattern. This works, but seems ugly.

This seems like a pretty common thing. I'm new to NodaTime, so I'm certain I'm missing something. I'm using NodaTime 1.3.1 and targeting .net 4.0. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

g is fine as a standard pattern specifier - but only on its own; it can't be part of a custom pattern, which is what you're effectively trying to do here. You're effectively trying to mix and match, which we don't support :(

As well as the options you've already outlined (which I agree will work but are somewhat ugly) you could use

var bclDateFormat = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat;
var localDateTimePattern =
    bclDateFormat.ShortDatePattern + " " + bclDateFormat.ShortTimePattern;
var patternDateTimeOffset = ZonedDateTimePattern.CreateWithCurrentCulture(
    localDateTimePattern + " o<m>",
    DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb);

Still not terribly pleasant, admittedly - but that's effectively what g does anyway (uses the two existing short patterns and just space-separates them).

As Matt said, please file a feature request - I'm not sure what the best approach is here, but I'll have a think about it.