Getting time zone description with NodaTime

Question

Using the built in .NET library I can use a call like this

TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones()[120].DisplayName

Which gives a nicely formatted timezone (UTC+10:00) Hobart

Is there something in NodaTime to get the TimeZone formatted in a user friendly way like this?

More specifically, how do I get the City names for the timezone, the offset it not that hard to get.

Does this answer your question? [Get offset minutes from timezone (string) with NodaTime](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40006629/get-offset-minutes-from-timezone-string-with-nodatime) — RoadRunner, Mar 24 '20 at 06:18
Not really, because the (UTC+10:00) is not that hard to get, its the Hobart that is tricky. — Craig, Mar 24 '20 at 06:20
I saw this question right before going to bed, so while I don't have time to research it, you might want to poke around the documentation for the `NodaTime.TimeZones` package... although be aware that NodaTime has two options for timezones, one of which is the TimeZoneInfo classes you already mentioned (which appears as `BclDateTimeZone` in NodaTime). — Powerlord, Mar 24 '20 at 06:24

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 25 '20 at 20:19

A few things first:

The display names coming from the TimeZoneInfo object are localized to the operating system's language settings, and you cannot provide a specific language or culture.
They are also inconsistent across platforms. The example you gave is the output when running on Windows, but not on Linux or Mac OSX.
Noda Time doesn't encapsulate display names. Localizations are generally out of scope. So the simple answer to your question is - no.

However, that is (in part) why my TimeZoneNames library exists. It works with IANA or Windows time zone identifiers, and provides localized names for display of time zones in various use cases. You can use it in conjunction with NodaTime, or by itself. For example:

DateTimeZone tz = DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb["Australia/Hobart"];
string displayName = TZNames.GetDisplayNameForTimeZone(tz.Id, "en-US");
Console.WriteLine(displayName); // "(UTC+10:00) Hobart"

This will return consistent output across platforms, and gives you full control over the culture used to localize the output.

Getting time zone description with NodaTime

1 Answers1