You can convert the raw values appearing in any column of the FlexGrid into different formats. FlexGrid supports standard .NET format strings used to display numeric values as local currency, percentages, dates, and more. Formatting only applies to display value of a cell and does not affect the underlying data.
You can specify a column's format by setting its Format property to a valid string. The string should contain one or two characters from a known list of formats. The first character specifies the format (format specifier) while the second optional character specifies precision (precision specifier). For example, the following format string converts a raw value to display local currency up to 2 decimal places.
The following code example demonstrates how to specify a column's format in C# and XAML. The example uses the sample created in the Quick start section.
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grid.Columns["OrderTotal"].Format = "N2"; | |
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<c1:FlexGrid.Columns> <c1:GridColumn Binding="OrderTotal" Format="N2"/> </c1:FlexGrid.Columns> | |
The following table shows all the numeric format strings that FlexGrid currently supports. Note that these format strings are not case sensitive.
| Format Specifier | Name | Precision Specifier | Example |
| "C" or "c" | Currency | Number of decimal digits | 123.4567 (C2) à $123.46 |
| "D" or "d" | Decimal | Minimum number of digits | 1234 (D6) à 001234 |
| "E" or "e" | Exponential | Number of decimal digits | 1,234 (E2) à 1.23E3 |
| "F" or "f" | Fixed Point | Number of decimal digits | -1234.56 (F4) à -1234.5600 |
| "G" or "g" | General | Number of significant digits | 123.45 (G4) à 123.5 |
| "N" or "n" | Number | Desired number of decimal places | 1234 (N1) à 1234.0 |
| "P" or "p" | Percent | Desired number of decimal places | 1 (P2) à 100.00% |
| "X" or "x" | Hexadecimal | Desired number of digits in the result | 123 (X2) à 7B |
The following table shows the date/time format strings that FlexGrid currently supports.
| Format Specifier | Description | Example |
| "d" | Short date pattern |
3/31/2016 31/3/2016 (FR} 2016/3/31 (JP) |
| "D" | Long date pattern | Thursday, March 31, 2016 |
| "f" | Full date, short time pattern | Thursday, March 31, 2016 12:00 AM |
| "F" | Full date, full time pattern | Thursday, March 31, 2016 12:00:00 AM |
| "g" | General date, short time pattern | 3/31/2016 12:00 AM |
| "G" | General date, long time pattern | 3/31/2016 12:00:00 AM |
| "M" or "m" | Month, day pattern | March 31 |
| "t" | Short time pattern | 12:00 AM |
| "T" | Long time pattern | 12:00:00 AM |
| "u" | Universal sortable pattern | 2016-03-31 12:00:00Z |
| "U" | Universal full pattern | Thursday, March 31, 2016 12:00:00 AM |
| "Y" or "y" | Year, month pattern | March, 2016 |
FlexGrid also supports custom date and time format strings that allow you to display date and time values in numerous ways. For example, the format string below converts the previous format (M/dd/yyyy) to "yyyy-MM" format.
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grid.Columns["Hired"].Format = "yyyy-MM"; | |
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<c1:FlexGrid.Columns> <c1:GridColumn Binding="Hired" Format="yyyy-MM"/> </c1:FlexGrid.Columns> | |
The following table lists some common format specifier for creating custom date and time strings.
| Format Specifier | Description | Example |
| "d" | Day of the month | 1 |
| "dd" | Day of the month | 01 |
| "ddd" | Abbreviated day of the week | Mon |
| "dddd" | Full day of the week | Monday |
| "h" | The hour using 12-hour clock | 1 |
| "hh" | The hour using 12-hour clock | 01 |
| "H" | The hour using 24-hour clock | 13 |
| "HH" | The hour using 24-hour clock | 13 |
| "m" | Minute of time | 1 |
| "mm" | Minute of time | 01 |
| "M" | Month number | 1 |
| "MM" | Month number | 01 |
| "MMM" | Abbreviated month name | Mar |
| "MMMM" | Full month name | March |
| "s" | Second of time | 1 |
| "ss" | Second of time | 01 |
| "tt" | The AM/PM Designator | AM |
| "yy" | Abbreviated year | 16 |
| "yyyy" | Full year | 2016 |
| "\" | Escape character | H\H à 13H |
| Any other character | The character is copied to the result string | yyyy-MM à 2016-03 |
If you need to format a column that is not numerical or date/time, refer to Custom Cells and Data Mapping topics.