SQL Server datetime culture (localization) headache - sql

Question

SQL Server 2005. Visual Studio 2010. ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application
This is a web application that supports multiple languages, one of them is Korean. I have “langid” in the query string to differentiate different languages, if langid=3 it is Korean.
In my code behind’ C# code, I read a table using this query:
"select * from Reservations where rsv_id = 1234"
There is a column named "rsv_date" in the table which is reservation date, of type datetime. In the db table its value is "11/22/2012 4:14:37 PM". I checked this in SQL server management studio. But when I read it out, I got "2012-11-22 오후 4:14:37"! Where does that Korean “오후” come from??? Is it because of some culture setting anywhere? But I don’t see where, either in my code or in SQL Server. This caused problem for me, because when I modify this record, it will try to write "2012-11-22 오후 4:14:37" to the db, which of course SQL server reports error.
My original code:
Hashtable reservation = new Hashtable();
SqlCommand sqlCommand = null;
SqlDataReader dataReader;
string queryCommand = "select * from Reservations where rsv_id = #RsvID";
sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(queryCommand, getConnection());
sqlCommand.Connection.Open();
sqlCommand.Parameters.AddWithValue("#RsvID", rsvID);
dataReader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();
while (dataReader.Read())
{
reservation["rsvID"] = dataReader["rsv_id"];
reservation["rsvCode"] = dataReader["rsv_code"];
reservation["rsvType"] = dataReader["rsv_type"];
reservation["rsvDate"] = dataReader["rsv_date"]; // where does Korean come from?
...
}

Answer 1

It's a common misunderstanding that you can "check" the format of datetime fields in the database.
The format you see on screen will always depend on the client, even if the client is "SQL server management studio".
In the database, the datetime is stored in a binary format that very few need to know.
So, the Korean characters are from the client, in this case your own program.
And Yes, they will depend on some culture setting somewhere.
Your example doesn't show what happens to reservation["rsvDate"] , where is the value displayed with the Korean characters ?
How are you trying to write the value with Korean characters to the database ?
To avoid Korean characters you could use .ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) where you use the Date value.