The two main types of formatting concern numbers and dates. Report definitions allow you to use .NET formatting strings as well as custom formatting strings such as those you may have used in Microsoft Excel.
Common Number Formats
Visual Studio.NET provides shortcuts for some of the most commonly used number formats, or you can create your own:
| Format String | Description | Results on the number 123456789 in the en-US Culture |
|---|---|---|
| C or c | Currency | $123,456,789.00 |
| D or d | Decimal | 123456789 |
| E or e | Scientific | 1.234568E+008 |
| F or f | Fixed-point | 123456789.00 |
| G or g | General | 123456789 |
| N or n | Number | 123,456,789.00 |
| P or p | Percentage | 12,345,678,900.00 % |
| R or r | Round-trip | 123456789 |
| X or x | Hexadecimal | 123456789 |
| ##m##m##m##.000 | Custom m formatting | 123m45m67m89.000 |
Common Date Formats
Visual Studio.NET also provides shortcuts for some of the most commonly used date/time formats, or you can create your own:
| Format String | Description | Results on the date 01-May-92 in the en-US Culture |
|---|---|---|
| d | Short date | 5/1/1992 |
| D | Long date | Friday, May 01, 1992 |
| t | Short time | 12:00 AM |
| T | Long time | 12:00:00 AM |
| f | Full date/time (short time) | Friday, May 01, 1992 12:00 AM |
| F | Full date/time (long time) | Friday, May 01, 1992 12:00:00 AM |
| g | General date/time (short time) | 5/1/1992 12:00 AM |
| G | General date/time (long time) | 5/1/1992 12:00:00 AM |
| M or m | Month day | May 01 |
| R or r | RFC1123 pattern | Fri, 01 May 1992 00:00:00 GMT |
| Y or y | Year month | May, 1992 |
| dddd | Custom day formatting | Friday |
| yyyy gg | Custom year formatting | 1992 A.D. |
For more information, see MSDN's Custom DateTime Format Strings topic.
See Also
Getting Started
TextBox Report Item