CsvHelper changing how dates and times are output

Question

I am using CsvHelper to write some CSV files and want to change the format of my dates and times to something specific. Following the advice from https://stackoverflow.com/a/31817621/223742 I can successfully create maps for each of my classes.

However it has the distinct disadvantage that I now need to create custom maps for all the classes that I want to export. As I always want all the fields exported this becomes a maintenance nightmare as I have to amend maps each time.

So is there any simple way to tell CsvHelper to write all dates and times using a specific format?

Answer 1

You can set it globally per type using TypeConverterOptionsFactory.

void Main()
{
    using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
    using (var writer = new StreamWriter(stream))
    using (var csv = new CsvWriter(writer))
    {
        var options = new TypeConverterOptions
        {
            Format = "o"
        };
        TypeConverterOptionsFactory.AddOptions<DateTime>(options);

        csv.WriteField(DateTime.Now);
        csv.NextRecord();
        writer.Flush();
        stream.Position = 0;

        reader.ReadToEnd().Dump();
    }
}

Output:

2016-09-19T11:01:41.5507054-05:00