WinForms – Date and time input

When you need to let the user select a date and/or time of day, you can use the DateTimePicker control:

You can set the control properties in the UI or programmatically:

public frmDateTime()
{
	InitializeComponent();

	longDatePicker.Format = DateTimePickerFormat.Long;
	longDatePicker.Value = new DateTime(year: 2025, month: 1, day: 1);
} 
Code language: C# (cs)

If you don’t set an initial value, it’ll default to DateTime.Now (at the time the code is executed).

The value the user picked is available via the DateTimePicker.Value property. This is a DateTime object.

private void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	DateTime longDate = longDatePicker.Value;
   
	//save to the database etc...
}  
Code language: C# (cs)

To show the DateTime as a string in the UI, you can use either the built-in format specifiers – Long (date), Short (date), Time – or use a custom format. If you use one of the built-in format specifiers, it’ll use the current system’s date/time format. I’ll show examples of using the Time format to get the time of day, using a custom format to get the date and time, and using a different control for getting non-clock time.

Time of day

Here’s an example of using the Time format to get the time of day. It displays just the time and uses the up/down picker:

Here’s how to use the Time format and make it use the up/down picker:

public frmDateTime()
{
	InitializeComponent();

	timeOfDayPicker.Format = DateTimePickerFormat.Time;
	timeOfDayPicker.ShowUpDown = true;
} 
Code language: C# (cs)

Note: DateTimePicker has two types of pickers – calendar and up/down. The up/down picker is good for when you’re only displaying the time of day.

You can set the initial time of day value with a DateTime. This is a bit awkward, because you have to set the date part of the DateTime (just use 2000-1-1):

timeOfDayPicker.Value = new DateTime(2000, 1, 1, hour: 11, minute: 0, second: 0);
Code language: C# (cs)

Here’s how to get the value:

private void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	DateTime timeOfDay = timeOfDayPicker.Value;
   
	//save to the database etc...
}  
Code language: C# (cs)

Date and time

Here’s an example of using a custom format to allow the user to select both the date and time. It’s using the calendar picker:

You have to tell it you’re using a custom format and also set the custom format string:

public frmDateTime()
{
	InitializeComponent();

	dateTimePicker.Format = DateTimePickerFormat.Custom;
	dateTimePicker.CustomFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss tt";
}
Code language: C# (cs)

You can set the initial value to any DateTime object. Here’s an example of defaulting it to 2022-02-07 14:00:00:

dateTimePicker.Value = new DateTime(year: 2022, month: 2, day: 7, hour: 14, minute: 0, second: 0);
Code language: C# (cs)

Get the selected DateTime from the Value property:

private void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	DateTime dateTime = dateTimePicker.Value;
   
	//save to the database etc...
} 
Code language: C# (cs)

Non-clock time

DateTimePicker is good for time of day input – i.e. a specific time on the clock. For other types of time input – such as duration of time – you can either use a MaskedTextBox or a NumericUpDown control.

Use NumericUpDown when you only need to get one unit of time (ex: just hours). Otherwise use MaskedTextBox to handle the more complex scenario of accepting multiple units of time (ex: hours and minutes).

Here’s an example of using MaskedTextBox. Let’s say you want the user to input a countdown time in hours, minutes, and seconds:

Configure the custom format by setting the MaskedTextBox.Mask property, and set a good default value.

public frmDateTime()
{
	InitializeComponent();

	countdownTimerPicker.Mask = "00:00:00";
	countdownTimerPicker.Text = "01:30:00";
}
Code language: C# (cs)

Note: 00:00:00 means they can only select digits (0-9) for all positions.

Get the input from MaskedTextBox.Text and parse a DateTime from this string based on your custom format. For example, this is parsing the 00:00:00 formatted string into a TimeSpan:

private void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	var timeParts = countdownTimerPicker.Text.Split(":");
	int hours = Convert.ToInt32(timeParts[0]);
	int minutes = Convert.ToInt32(timeParts[1]);
	int seconds = Convert.ToInt32(timeParts[2]);

	var timeSpan = new TimeSpan(hours, minutes, seconds);

	MessageBox.Show($"Hours = {timeSpan.TotalHours}");
}
Code language: C# (cs)

This parses the “01:30:00” string into a TimeSpan and outputs the total hours as the following:

Hours = 1.5Code language: plaintext (plaintext)