string.Format return empty string

Question

Is there a way to get string.Format to always return an empty string?

    string.Format("", DateTime.Now);

3rd party component lets us pass no more than a format string. The empty string idea doesn't work. Was hoping there might be another less obvious way. I do not deny that the below code works (answers), it is just that I can't reprogram said 3rd party component.

@sgtz Why doesn't empty string format work? And can you specify different formats for different arrg list? — horgh
– horgh, Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 0:43
@KonstantinVasilcov: there must be some hand coded logic by the 3rd party (like string.EmptyOrNull) that sets it to a default. Possibly I'm asking the impossible from this angle and need to look at an IValueConverter — sgtz
– sgtz, Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 9:21

Lion · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-28 00:27:50Z

3

string.Format("{0}", string.Empty)?

edited Sep 28, 2012 at 0:27

Lion

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answered Sep 28, 2012 at 0:20

Adam Plocher

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2 Comments

sgtz Over a year ago

I should say that date will always have a valid date in it... and that all that I can do is pass a 3rd party library is the format string. I'm trying to trick it.

Adam Plocher Over a year ago

Your example should work just fine: string.Format("", DateTime.Now) - I just checked in a simple Console App and it resulted in a blank string.

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-28 00:21:20Z

2

How about

string.Format(string.Empty, other, useless, parameters);

answered Sep 28, 2012 at 0:21

Sergey Kalinichenko

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2 Comments

sehe Over a year ago

Wokay, but how is this essentially different from the OP's code...?

Sergey Kalinichenko Over a year ago

@sehe For a task this simple, it is hard to come up with anything different, let alone essentially different. The only difference is referencing string.Empty explicitly, and the OP requested a return of string.Empty.

sgtz · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-01 08:29:21Z

1

The answer is:

string.Format(" ", DateTime.Now);

At least that's the way to trick the 3rd party software into giving the desired result.

answered Oct 1, 2012 at 8:29

sgtz

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1 Comment

Rhys Jones Over a year ago

Although the empty format string in a string.Format does format a value as blank, how it works in practice will depend on any application code that consumes the format string before passing it to a string.Format. Ignoring a null/blank format string is a reasonable action, hence a single space working for you. This trick works in ASP.Net MVC HTML Helpers too, i.e. if you want the benefits of using a TextBoxFor but don't want to render the value then a " " format string will blank the value.

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