Globalization in ASP.NET MVC Datepicker Control

3 Mar 202312 minutes to read

Globalization is the combination of adapting the control to various languages by means of parsing and formatting the date or number Internationalization, and also by adding cultural specific customizations and translating the text localization.

By default, DatePicker date format, week and month names are specific to the American English culture. It utilizes the Essential JavaScript 2 Internationalization package to parse and format the date object based on the culture by using the official UNICODE CLDR JSON data. It provides the loadCldr method to load culture specific CLDR JSON data.

• Set the culture by using the locale property.

To go with the different culture other than English, follow the below steps.

• Install the CLDR-Data package by using the below command (it installs the CLDR JSON data). To know more about CLDR-Data refer the CLDR-Data link.

npm install cldr-data --save

Once the package installed, you can find the culture specific JSON data under the location /node_modules/cldr-data.

In ASP.NET MVC refer the culture files directly from /node_modules/cldr-data location.

    function loadCultureFiles(name) {
        var files = ['ca-gregorian.json', 'numbers.json', 'timeZoneNames.json'];
        var loader = ej.base.loadCldr;
        var loadCulture = function (prop) {
            var val, ajax;
            ajax = new ej.base.Ajax(location.origin + location.pathname + '/../../node_modules/cldr-data/main/' + name + '/' + files[prop], 'GET', false);
            ajax.onSuccess = function (value) {
                val = value;
            };
            ajax.send();
            loader(JSON.parse(val));
        };
        for (var prop = 0; prop < files.length; prop++) {
            loadCulture(prop);
        }
    }

NOTE

The Localization library allows you to localize default text content of the DatePicker. The DatePicker control has static text for today feature that can be changed to other cultures (Arabic, Deutsch, French, etc.) by defining the locale value and translation object.

Locale keywords	Text
today	Name of the button to choose Today date.
placeholder	Hint to describe expected value in input element.

• Before changing to a culture other than English, ensure that locale text for the concerned culture is loaded through load method of L10n class.

      var L10n = ej.base.L10n;
      L10n.load({
            'de': {
                'datepicker': { placeholder: 'Wählen Sie ein Datum',
                  today: 'heute'
                }
            }
        });

The following example demonstrates the DatePicker in German culture.

CSHTML

@Html.EJS().DatePicker("datepicker").Render()

<script>
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
        datepicker = document.getElementById('datepicker').ej2_instances[0];
        var L10n = ej.base.L10n;
        L10n.load({
            'de': {
                'datepicker': {
                    placeholder: 'Wählen Sie ein Datum',
                    today: 'heute'
                }
            }
        });
        loadCultureFiles('de');
        datepicker.locale = 'de';
    });

    function loadCultureFiles(name) {
        var files = ['ca-gregorian.json', 'numbers.json', 'timeZoneNames.json'];
        if (name === 'ar') {
            files.push('numberingSystems.json');
        }
        var loader = ej.base.loadCldr;
        var loadCulture = function (prop) {
            var val, ajax;
            if (name === 'ar' && prop === files.length - 1) {
                ajax = new ej.base.Ajax(location.origin + location.pathname + '/../../node_modules/cldr-data/supplemental/' + files[prop], 'GET', false);
            } else {
                ajax = new ej.base.Ajax(location.origin + location.pathname + '/../../node_modules/cldr-data/main/' + name + '/' + files[prop], 'GET', false);
            }
            ajax.onSuccess = function (value) {
                val = value;
            };
            ajax.send();
            loader(JSON.parse(val));
        };
        for (var prop = 0; prop < files.length; prop++) {
            loadCulture(prop);
        }
    }

</script>

Right-To-Left

The DatePicker supports RTL (right-to-left) functionality for languages like Arabic and Hebrew to displays the text in the right-to-left direction. Use enableRtl property to set the RTL direction.

The following code example initialize the DatePicker control in Arabic culture and also explains how to set the localized text to the placeholder using load method of L10n class.

CSHTML

@Html.EJS().DatePicker("datepicker").EnableRtl(true).Render()

<script>
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
        datepicker = document.getElementById('datepicker').ej2_instances[0];
        var L10n = ej.base.L10n;
        L10n.load({
            'ar': {
                'datepicker': {
                    placeholder: 'اختر تاريخا',
                    today: 'اليوم'
                }
            }
        });
        loadCultureFiles("ar");
        datepicker.locale = 'ar';
    });

    function loadCultureFiles(name) {
        var files = ['ca-gregorian.json', 'numbers.json', 'timeZoneNames.json'];
        if (name === 'ar') {
            files.push('numberingSystems.json');
        }
        var loader = ej.base.loadCldr;
        var loadCulture = function (prop) {
            var val, ajax;
            if (name === 'ar' && prop === files.length - 1) {
                ajax = new ej.base.Ajax(location.origin + location.pathname + '/../../node_modules/cldr-data/supplemental/' + files[prop], 'GET', false);
            } else {
                ajax = new ej.base.Ajax(location.origin + location.pathname + '/../../node_modules/cldr-data/main/' + name + '/' + files[prop], 'GET', false);
            }
            ajax.onSuccess = function (value) {
                val = value;
            };
            ajax.send();
            loader(JSON.parse(val));
        };
        for (var prop = 0; prop < files.length; prop++) {
            loadCulture(prop);
        }
    }

</script>