Spargine is a collection of open-source assemblies and NuGet packages designed for .NET 10, which I have been developing and maintaining since the release of .NET Framework 2. These assemblies are not only a core part of my projects but are also actively deployed in production environments across several companies I collaborate with.

Get Spargine

You can access the source code and NuGet packages here:

• GitHub: Spargine 10
• NuGet: dotNetDaveNuGet

If you’ve been developing with .NET as long as I have—since Beta 1!—you know the struggle: every time you want to display a date and time in a specific format, you end up Googling or digging through documentation to get the format string just right. Sound familiar?

That’s exactly why I created the DateTimeFormat type in Spargine. Now I never have to remember those format strings again—and neither do you.

You’ll find DateTimeFormat in the DotNetTips.Spargine.Extensions project and NuGet package. It leverages the Enumeration base type (also in Spargine) to give you a clean, strongly typed set of date and time format options.

What’s Inside DateTimeFormat

Here are the built-in formatting options available:

• FullDateLongTime – Monday, December 21, 2025 3:16:12 PM
• FullDateShortTime – Monday, December 21, 2025 3:16 PM
• FullDateTime – Monday, December 21, 2025 3:16 PM
• GeneralDateLongTime – 2/21/2025 3:16:12 PM
• GeneralDateShortTime – 12/21/2025 3:16 PM
• LongDate – Monday, December 21, 2025
• LongTime – 3:16:12 PM
• MonthDay – December 21
• MonthYear – December 2025
• RFC1123 – Mon, 21 Dec 2025 15:16:12 GMT
• RoundTripDateTime – 2025-12-21T15:16:12.2487693-08:00
• ShortDate – 12/21/2025
• ShortTime – 3:16 PM
• SortableDateTime – 2025-12-21T15:16:12
• UniversalFullDateTime – Monday, December 21, 2025 11:16:12 PM

Example Usage

Here’s how simple formatting becomes with Spargine:

Using the Extension Method

var result = DateTime.Now.ToFormattedString(DateTimeFormat.GeneralDateShortTime);

Or Using ToString() Directly

var result = DateTime.Now.ToString(DateTimeFormat.FullDateLongTime.DisplayName);

No memorization. No copy-paste from Stack Overflow. Just clean, reliable formatting.

Why Use DateTimeFormat

• Strongly typed format options
• Reduces repetitive boilerplate
• Works seamlessly with ToFormattedString()

Summary

The next time your .NET project needs to display dates and times, skip the formatting headaches. Reach for DateTimeFormat and the ToFormattedString() extension method in Spargine—it’s fast, consistent, and engineered to save you time.

You can grab it via NuGet under DotNetTips.Spargine.Extensions.

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