How to parse a month name (string) to an integer f

Question

I need to be able to compare some month names I have in an array.

It would be nice if there were some direct way like:

Month.toInt("January") > Month.toInt("May")

My Google searching seems to suggest the only way is to write your own method, but this seems like a common enough problem that I would think it would have been already implemented in .Net, anyone done this before?

Answer 1

You don't have to create a DateTime instance to do this. It's as simple as this:

public static class Month
{
    public static int ToInt(this string month)
    {
        return Array.IndexOf(
            CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.MonthNames,
            month.ToLower(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture))
            + 1;
    }
}

I'm running on the da-DK culture, so this unit test passes:

[Theory]
[InlineData("Januar", 1)]
[InlineData("Februar", 2)]
[InlineData("Marts", 3)]
[InlineData("April", 4)]
[InlineData("Maj", 5)]
[InlineData("Juni", 6)]
[InlineData("Juli", 7)]
[InlineData("August", 8)]
[InlineData("September", 9)]
[InlineData("Oktober", 10)]
[InlineData("November", 11)]
[InlineData("December", 12)]
public void Test(string monthName, int expected)
{
    var actual = monthName.ToInt();
    Assert.Equal(expected, actual);
}

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to create an overload where you can pass in an explicit CultureInfo.

Answer 2

One simply solution would be create a Dictionary with names and values. Then using Contains() you can find the right value.

Dictionary<string, string> months = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
                { "january", "01"},
                { "february", "02"},
                { "march", "03"},
                { "april", "04"},
                { "may", "05"},
                { "june", "06"},
                { "july", "07"},
                { "august", "08"},
                { "september", "09"},
                { "october", "10"},
                { "november", "11"},
                { "december", "12"},
};
foreach (var month in months)
{
    if (StringThatContainsMonth.ToLower().Contains(month.Key))
    {
        string thisMonth = month.Value;
    }
}

Answer 3

I translate it into C# code in Spanish version, regards:

public string ObtenerNumeroMes(string NombreMes){

       string NumeroMes;   

       switch(NombreMes) {

        case ("ENERO") :
            NumeroMes = "01";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("FEBRERO") :
            NumeroMes = "02";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("MARZO") :
            NumeroMes = "03";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("ABRIL") :
            NumeroMes = "04";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("MAYO") :
            NumeroMes = "05";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("JUNIO") :
            NumeroMes = "06";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("JULIO") :
            NumeroMes = "07";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("AGOSTO") :
            NumeroMes = "08";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("SEPTIEMBRE") :
            NumeroMes = "09";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("OCTUBRE") :
            NumeroMes = "10";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("NOVIEMBRE") :
            NumeroMes = "11";
            return NumeroMes;

        case ("DICIEMBRE") :
            NumeroMes = "12";
            return NumeroMes;

            default:
            Console.WriteLine("Error");
            return "ERROR";

        }

   }

Answer 4

DateTime.ParseExact(monthName, "MMMM", CultureInfo.CurrentCulture ).Month

Although, for your purposes, you'll probably be better off just creating a Dictionary<string, int> mapping the month's name to its value.

Answer 5

Public Function returnMonthNumber(ByVal monthName As String) As Integer
    Select Case monthName.ToLower
        Case Is = "january"
            Return 1
        Case Is = "february"
            Return 2
        Case Is = "march"
            Return 3
        Case Is = "april"
            Return 4
        Case Is = "may"
            Return 5
        Case Is = "june"
            Return 6
        Case Is = "july"
            Return 7
        Case Is = "august"
            Return 8
        Case Is = "september"
            Return 9
        Case Is = "october"
            Return 10
        Case Is = "november"
            Return 11
        Case Is = "december"
            Return 12
        Case Else
            Return 0
    End Select
End Function

caution code is in Beta version.

Answer 6

You could do something like this:

Convert.ToDate(month + " 01, 1900").Month