What does IFormatProvider do?

Question

I was playing around with the Datetime.ParseExact method, and it wants an IFormatProvider...

It works inputting null, but what exactly does it do?

Answer 1

IFormatProvider provides culture info to the method in question. DateTimeFormatInfo implements IFormatProvider, and allows you to specify the format you want your date/time to be displayed in. Examples can be found on the relevant MSDN pages.