CultureDataFormatter

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This is a helper class used to encode, parse and reformat culturally sensitive data used throughout SuperOffice without culture knowledge and a front end with such knowledge. The most common case is when working with Archive Providers and performing Mass Operations.

Additionally, MDO lists such as Business and Category often contain delimited multicultural strings that require parsing. In the administration pages of SuperOffice, an MDO Item is easily edited in an MDO Item dialog.

MDOListItem dialog -screenshot

As seen in the database, the record is stored as:

MDOListItem record

Using CultureDataFormatter

The following code demonstrates how to look up the Business MDO List items. The output of the name contains the complete multicultural string as seen in the database.

ISoListProvider provider = SuperOffice.CRM.Lists.SoListProviderFactory.Create("business");

foreach (var item in provider.RootItems)
{
  Debug.WriteLine(item.Name);
  // outputs:
  // "US:\"Legal\";NO:\"Lovlig\";"
}

The following code demonstrates how to use the CultureDataFormatter class to extract the cultural value using a language code.

ISoListProvider provider = SuperOffice.CRM.Lists.SoListProviderFactory.Create("business");

foreach (var item in provider.RootItems)
{
  var engName = CultureDataFormatter.ParseMultiLanguageString(item.Name, "en-US");
  // outputs:
  // "Legal"
}

Encoded Values

With core NetServer, the archive row column data contains a RawValue property of type Object, and can safely be cast to the appropriate type. However, when using NetServer web services it depends on whether you are using SuperOffice proxies or not. If you are, the RawValue property contains the column value. If not, only the DisplayValue exists and all values are returned encoded.

Except for string column values, DisplayValue always contains an encoded string. The SuperOffice.CRM.Globalization.CultureDataFormatter class knows how to handle these values and simply parses and returns the column value in the correct data type.

An encoded value is always a string of characters in the format: [data-type-moniker : value], for example, [I:3]. Columns that are of type string are not encoded.

The data type moniker indicates the column data type followed by a colon, then the column data value. The following table lists all encodings with examples.

Data type Moniker Example
Binary B [B:X98…]
Date D [D:09.11.2017]
DateTime DT [DT:11/09/2017 14:53:18]
Double, Decimal F [F:123.4]
Int I [I:123]
IntArr A [A:3,4,5]
Money M [M:123.45]
Time T [T:14:52]
TimeSpan TS [TS:500]
String “Not encoded”

For each data type, CultureDataFormatter has a static Encode and ParseEncoded method, for example:

// encode
string = CultureDataFormatter.EncodeInt(int);

// decode
int = CultureDataFormatter.ParseEncodedInt(string);

Additional encode methods on the CultureDataFormatter class include:

  • EncodeBinary
  • EncodeDate
  • EncodeDateTime
  • EncodeDouble
  • EncodeInt
  • EncodeIntArr
  • EncodeMoney
  • EncodeTime
  • EncodeTimeSpan
  • ParseEncodedBinary
  • ParseEncodedDate
  • ParseEncodedDateTime
  • ParseEncodedDouble
  • ParseEncodedInt
  • ParseEncodedIntArr
  • ParseEncodedMoney
  • ParseEncodedTime
  • ParseEncodedTimeSpan

As these methods are more optimal, we recommend you chose to use these over the plain Encode method.