How can I get the DateTime for the start of the week?

Question

How do I find the start of the week (both Sunday and Monday) knowing just the current time in C#?

Something like:

DateTime.Now.StartWeek(Monday);


        

Answer 1

Quickest way I can come up with is:

var sunday = DateTime.Today.AddDays(-(int)DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek);

If you would like any other day of the week to be your start date all you need to do is add the DayOfWeek value to the end

var monday = DateTime.Today.AddDays(-(int)DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek + (int)DayOfWeek.Monday);

var tuesday = DateTime.Today.AddDays(-(int)DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek + (int)DayOfWeek.Tuesday); 

Answer 2

var now = System.DateTime.Now;

var result = now.AddDays(-((now.DayOfWeek - System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek + 7) % 7)).Date;

Answer 3

This will return both the beginning of the week and the end of the week dates:

    private string[] GetWeekRange(DateTime dateToCheck)
    {
        string[] result = new string[2];
        TimeSpan duration = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 0); //One day 
        DateTime dateRangeBegin = dateToCheck;
        DateTime dateRangeEnd = DateTime.Today.Add(duration);

        dateRangeBegin = dateToCheck.AddDays(-(int)dateToCheck.DayOfWeek);
        dateRangeEnd = dateToCheck.AddDays(6 - (int)dateToCheck.DayOfWeek);

        result[0] = dateRangeBegin.Date.ToString();
        result[1] = dateRangeEnd.Date.ToString();
        return result;

    }

I have posted the complete code for calculating the begin/end of week, month, quarter and year on my blog ZamirsBlog

Answer 4

Let's combine the culture-safe answer and the extension method answer:

public static class DateTimeExtensions
{
    public static DateTime StartOfWeek(this DateTime dt, DayOfWeek startOfWeek)
    {
        System.Globalization.CultureInfo ci = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
        DayOfWeek fdow = ci.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek;
        return DateTime.Today.AddDays(-(DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek- fdow));
    }
}

Answer 5

Use an extension method. They're the answer to everything, you know! ;)

public static class DateTimeExtensions
{
    public static DateTime StartOfWeek(this DateTime dt, DayOfWeek startOfWeek)
    {
        int diff = (7 + (dt.DayOfWeek - startOfWeek)) % 7;
        return dt.AddDays(-1 * diff).Date;
    }
}

Which can be used as follows:

DateTime dt = DateTime.Now.StartOfWeek(DayOfWeek.Monday);
DateTime dt = DateTime.Now.StartOfWeek(DayOfWeek.Sunday);

Answer 6

No one seems to have answered this correctly yet. I'll paste my solution here in case anyone needs it. The following code works regardless if first day of the week is a monday or a sunday or something else.

public static class DateTimeExtension
{
  public static DateTime GetFirstDayOfThisWeek(this DateTime d)
  {
    CultureInfo ci = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
    var first = (int)ci.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek;
    var current = (int)d.DayOfWeek;

    var result = first <= current ?
      d.AddDays(-1 * (current - first)) :
      d.AddDays(first - current - 7);

    return result;
  }
}

class Program
{
  static void Main()
  {
    System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-US");
    Console.WriteLine("Current culture set to en-US");
    RunTests();
    Console.WriteLine();
    System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("da-DK");
    Console.WriteLine("Current culture set to da-DK");
    RunTests();
    Console.ReadLine();
  }

  static void RunTests()
  {
    Console.WriteLine("Today {1}: {0}", DateTime.Today.Date.GetFirstDayOfThisWeek(), DateTime.Today.Date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd"));
    Console.WriteLine("Saturday 2013-03-02: {0}", new DateTime(2013, 3, 2).GetFirstDayOfThisWeek());
    Console.WriteLine("Sunday 2013-03-03: {0}", new DateTime(2013, 3, 3).GetFirstDayOfThisWeek());
    Console.WriteLine("Monday 2013-03-04: {0}", new DateTime(2013, 3, 4).GetFirstDayOfThisWeek());
  }
}