How do you control the output format of a date when writing a CSV file with FileHelpers?

Question

I'm using the FileHelpers 2.0 library to write a CSV file using the ClassBuilder class to generate a record type.

My data contains dates and so I create a field of type DateTime, but when the file is generated the date values come out in the format ddmmyyyy rather than dd/mm/yyyy e.g. 28042000 instead of 28/04/2000.

I've set the DateFormat property of the CsvOptions class to "dd/MM/yyyy" but it doesn't help.

Here is the code that generates the record type:

    private Type CreateRecordType()
    {
        int propertyIndex = 0;
        var csvOptions = new CsvOptions("Flat" + _report.RootType.Name, ',', Properties.Count)
                             {
                                 DateFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy"
                             };
        var classBuilder = new CsvClassBuilder(csvOptions);

        foreach(var property in Properties)
        {
            var fieldBuilder = classBuilder.FieldByIndex(propertyIndex++);
            fieldBuilder.FieldName = property.Name;
            fieldBuilder.FieldType = property.Type.Name;
        }

        return classBuilder.CreateRecordClass();
    }

Answer 1

It turns out you need to use the Converter property of the FieldBuilder class.

Adding the following block of code to my method allows me to customise the date format in the resulting CSV file.

if (property.Type == typeof(DateTime))
{
   fieldBuilder.Converter.Kind = ConverterKind.Date;
   fieldBuilder.Converter.Arg1 = "dd/MM/yyyy";
}