I have an application with a lot of calls to Decimal.ToString(void). The default format is not what is needed. I could change these calls to one of the other Decimal.ToString overloads, but it would be nicer if I didn't have to. So, is there a way to specify a different format for the Decimal.ToString(void) method so that I don't have to modify any of the calls to this method?
Update
As the answer below indicates, it is possible to do what I want, but I should not do so as it is not good programming practice. There are many alternative approaches which involve rewriting the calls; the approach I plan to go with is to store the desired format as a string constant and pass that to the calls:
class Example
{
const string s_DecimalFormat = "N2";
private decimal myDecimal1 = 12.345;
private decimal myDecimal2 = 6.7;
public void Method()
{
System.Console.WriteLine(myDecimal1.ToString(s_DecimalFormat));
System.Console.WriteLine(myDecimal2.ToString(s_DecimalFormat));
}
}
Theoretically, if you change System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture to something that formats a decimal the way you want, this would work. It will open up a huge can of worms you don't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Do not do this. Change all your calls. Maybe write a method for it.
A extension method might be nice here. Something like:
public static string ToMyString(this decimal value)
{
return value.ToString("your formatting");
}
I agree with @nvoigt that changing the globalization settings is a bad idea
You could write your own extension method. As an example:
public class Test
{
private void DoStuff()
{
Decimal d = new Decimal();
d = 0.5M;
Console.WriteLine("{0}", d);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", d.ToCustomString());
}
}
public static class Extensions
{
public static string ToCustomString(this Decimal number)
{
return string.Format("Blah {0}", number.ToString());
}
}
Output:
0.5
Blah 0.5
When using Decimal.ToCustomString instead of ToString, at least in this case, the decimals are prefaced with "Blah "
You can write the extension method in the format that you would like to return, granted you would need to use the extension method rather than .ToString()
