What is the difference between Culture and UICulture?
Culture and UICulture
Values are pairs of two-letter strings, the first is for defining language and the second for defining the region. Example:
en-GB
here en
represents English
and GB
represents Great Briton
en-US
here en
represents English
and US
represents United States
Use Culture
for Culture dependent functions like date, time.
and UICulture
is for correct resource file loading.
Culture
affects how culture-dependent data (dates, currencies, numbers and so on) is presented. Here are a few examples:
var date = new DateTime(2000, 1, 2);
var number = 12345.6789;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("de-DE");
Console.WriteLine(date); // 02.01.2000 00:00:00
Console.WriteLine(number.ToString("C")); // 12.345,68 €
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("fr-CA");
Console.WriteLine(date); // 2000-01-02 00:00:00
Console.WriteLine(number.ToString("C")); // 12 345,68 $
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
Console.WriteLine(date); // 1/2/2000 12:00:00 AM
Console.WriteLine(number.ToString("C")); // $12,345.68
Culture also affects parsing of user input in the same way:
const string numberString = "12.345,68";
decimal money;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("de-DE");
money = decimal.Parse(numberString); // OK!
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
money = decimal.Parse(numberString); // FormatException is thrown, TryParse would return false
Beware of cases where the parsing succeeds but the result is not what you would expect it to be.
const string numberString = "12.345";
decimal money;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("de-DE");
money = decimal.Parse(numberString); // 12345
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
money = decimal.Parse(numberString); // 12.345, where the . is a decimal point
UICulture
affects which resource file (Resources.lang.resx) is going to be loaded to by your application.
So to load German resources (presumably localized text) you would set UICulture
to the German culture and to display German formatting (without any impact on which resources are loaded) you would set Culture
.