Cannot get TimeZone to show long name instead of abbreviation (Xamarin Android)

Question

I'm trying to get the long name for the timezone from System.TimeZone. This is how I'm trying to do it:

Console.WriteLine(System.TimeZone.CurrentTimeZone.DaylightName);

And the result that i'm getting in console is

EST

But what I need is the long name:

Eastern Standard Time

I looked into C# documentation (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.timezone.currenttimezone(v=vs.110).aspx) and noticed that the .Net library is returning what I need but for some reason Xamarin (mono) just gives me the abbreviation.

Is there a way around that?

Answer 1

At the end of the day, I went through a lot of pain to figure this out and ended up with a converter on the Web and NOT on the android or device:

    private TimeZoneInfo ConvertTimeZone(string timeZoneString)
    {
        ReadOnlyCollection<TimeZoneInfo> timeZoneInfos = TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones();
        if (Regex.IsMatch(timeZoneString, "[A-Z]{3,5}[0-9]{0,2}") && !Regex.IsMatch(timeZoneString, "[A-Z]{3,5}[-]{1}[0-9]{0,2}"))
        {
            List<string> abbreviations = new List<string>();

            // create the list of abbreviations for TimeZoneInfos
            timeZoneInfos.ToList().ForEach(
                x =>
            {
                if (!Regex.IsMatch(x.StandardName, "[A-Z0-9]{3,4,5}"))
                {
                    string fullString = x.StandardName.Replace(" ", string.Empty);
                    string[] split = Regex.Split(fullString, "[a-z]|[()-.]");
                    abbreviations.Add(string.Concat(split));
                }
            });

            return timeZoneInfos[abbreviations.IndexOf(timeZoneString)];
        }
        else
        {
            return timeZoneInfos.Where(x => x.StandardName == timeZoneString).First();
        }
    }

The purpose of this was to get to show my data on the Map with the correct time zone and this did it.

Warning: This will probably work on most of the North American time zones but I cannot guarantee that it will work all across the world. Windows does have 102 time-zones and I just tested a few. I basically created a map for abbreviations.

Answer 2

I know it's a bit older, but for those who needs to get the timezone name use

Java.Util.TimeZone.Default.ID

This will give the timezone name.