Set up cultures that use default Hijri Calendar

Environment

Product

Telerik Webforms DatePicker for ASP.NET AJAX

Description

This sample demonstrates how you can set up the DatePicker if the Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture is initialized to a culture that uses Hijri Calendar by default like the ar-SA culture (Arabic-Saudi Arabia).

As the DatePicker does not support Hijri dates we create a custom ar-SA culture that uses the Gregorian Calendar instead of the Hijri one. In order to register new cultures you need administrative priviliges on the server machine.

Solution

Modify the culture settings to display dates in the Gregorian calendar format for Arabic (Saudi Arabia) culture (ar-SA):

using System;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using Telerik.Web.UI;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Threading;

public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page 
{
    protected override void InitializeCulture()
    {
        string cultureName = "ar-SA";
        CultureInfo customCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(cultureName);
        CultureInfo gregorianCulture = CreateGregorianCalendarCulture(customCulture);

        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = gregorianCulture;
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = gregorianCulture;
    }

    private CultureInfo CreateGregorianCalendarCulture(CultureInfo culture)
    {
        if (culture.Calendar.GetType() == typeof(GregorianCalendar))
        {
            return culture;
        }

        CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder arSA = new CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder("ar-S2", CultureAndRegionModifiers.None);
        arSA.LoadDataFromCultureInfo(culture);
        arSA.LoadDataFromRegionInfo(new RegionInfo(culture.LCID));
        arSA.AvailableCalendars = new Calendar[] { new GregorianCalendar() };

        // Register the data for deployment on this machine
        arSA.Register();

        // Instantiate a new CultureInfo from the new data
        CultureInfo result = new CultureInfo("ar-S2");

        // Unregister the  custom culture on this machine
        CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder.Unregister("ar-S2");

        return result;
    }
}

In the code above:

1. InitializeCulture: This method is overridden to set the culture for the current thread. It sets the CultureInfo and CurrentUICulture of the current thread to a custom culture that represents Arabic (Saudi Arabia) culture with the Gregorian calendar.

   • It starts by defining the desired culture name as "ar-SA".
   • Then, it creates a CultureInfo object based on this culture name.
   • Next, it creates a Gregorian calendar-based culture using the CreateGregorianCalendarCulture method.
   • Finally, it sets the current thread's culture and UI culture to this newly created culture.

2. CreateGregorianCalendarCulture: This method is responsible for creating a custom culture based on the specified culture, but with the Gregorian calendar.

   • It checks if the specified culture already uses the Gregorian calendar. If it does, it returns the culture as is.
   • If the culture does not use the Gregorian calendar, it creates a new custom culture builder (CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder) with the name "ar-S2" and no modifiers.
   • Then, it loads data from the specified culture and region info into this custom builder.
   • It sets the available calendars for this custom culture to only the Gregorian calendar.
   • Next, it registers this custom culture on the current machine.
   • After registering, it creates a new CultureInfo object based on the registered custom culture.
   • Finally, it unregisters the custom culture from the machine.