Display Format Options

Display format options specify a field’s display format, typically for numbers and dates.

Field Validation Type

Formatting Options

Boolean

You can set the display format to be any string values representing True and False.  The syntax for format strings is:

            <True Value>,<False Value>

Some examples are:

            Yes,No             (this is the default)
            Y,N
            True,False
            T,F
            1,0
            Positive,Negative

If you use a Checkbox control type in conjunction with the Boolean validation type, you must make sure that the Checkbox’s checked value and unchecked value match the Boolean field’s display format.

Credit Card Expiration Date
Date

The formats for Iron Speed Designer’s date field validation types must be valid .NET format strings.  Both standard and custom format strings are permitted, as long as they are considered valid by .NET, as defined in the Microsoft .NET format string documentation:

This information is quite extensive.  See Standard Date and Time Format Strings and Custom Date and Time Format Strings for examples.

Credit Card Number

If the format string contains a dash ("-"), the data will be shown with dashes, e.g., 5444-1111-2222-3333.

If the format string contains a capital X ("X"), only the last four digits will be shown (e.g., XXXXXXXXXXXX1234) except in places like field value text box controls where the data can be edited and / or reparsed.

Currency
Decimal Number
Number
Percentage

The formats for Iron Speed Designer’s numeric field validation types must be valid .NET format strings.  Both standard and custom format strings are permitted, as long as they are considered valid by .NET, as defined in the Microsoft .NET format string documentation:

This information is quite extensive.  See Standard Numeric Format Strings and Custom Numeric Format Strings for examples.

US State

Special formatting codes are available for this field validation type, as explained in US State Format Strings.

Standard Date and Time Format Strings

Option

Examples

d

Short date pattern.

Example for culture en-US:  4/10/2001

Example for culture en-GB:  10/04/2001

D

Long date pattern.

Example for culture en-US:  Tuesday, April 10, 2001.

Example for culture en-GB:  04 October 2001

f

Full date and time pattern.

Example for culture en-US:  Tuesday, April 10, 2001 3:51 PM.

Example for culture fr-FR:  mardi 10 avril 2001 15:51

In some cases, you may choose a short date format, such as “6/3/2005”, but both date and time may be displayed, such as "6/3/2005 6:22PM".  This can occur when your database field is a “date/time” field that stores the date as well as time.  Generally, such fields store dates as “Date + 12 am” or “Date + current time”.  To remedy this, you can change the display format of the field to display only the date and no time.  You can also define your own format by selecting custom format.

Custom Date and Time Format Strings

Option

Examples

dd/MM/yy

04/10/01

dd/MM/yyyy

04/10/2001

dddd, MMMM dd yyyy

Tuesday, April 10 2001

The ultimate reference for these conversion strings is the Microsoft .NET Developer’s Guide:

Standard Numeric Format Strings

For the validation types Number, Currency, and Percentage, a few examples of .NET Numeric format strings are:

Option

Examples

C

Currency.  The number is converted to a string that represents a currency amount.  The currency symbol is culture specific, e.g. £, ¥, ¢.

Example for value 12345.68 and culture en-US:  $12,345.68

The currency symbol displayed depends on the culture encoding in your Web.config file.  The table below shows several examples of currency symbols displayed for the number 208.58.

Culture Encoding

Format

ru-RU

208,58p

en-GB

£208.58

en-US

$208.58

Custom Numeric Format Strings

Option

Examples

#,#

Example for value 1234567890: 1,234,567,890

[##-##-##]

Example for value 123456: [12-34-56]

0

Example for value 5:  5

Example for value 57:  7

00.00

Example for value 1.2:  01.20

'£ ' ##.###.###,00

Example for value 12345678:  £ 12.345.678,00

The ultimate reference for these conversion strings is the Microsoft .NET Developer’s Guide:

US State Format Strings

The following format strings used by Iron Speed Designer are not defined by the .NET Framework, but are meant to be similar to other .NET format strings.

Option

Examples

S

Long state names.

Examples:  "California", "Washington".

s

Short state names.

Examples:  “CA”, “WA”.

See Also

Setting Database Field Properties

.NET formatting types