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

Following on from Compile This' Answer, use the following method to obtain the date for any day of the week:

public static DateTime GetDayOfWeek(DateTime dateTime, DayOfWeek dayOfWeek)
{
   var monday = dateTime.Date.AddDays((7 + (dateTime.DayOfWeek - DayOfWeek.Monday) % 7) * -1);

   var diff = dayOfWeek - DayOfWeek.Monday;

   if (diff == -1)
   {
      diff = 6;
   }

   return monday.AddDays(diff);
} 

Answer 2

Thanks for the examples. I needed to always use the "CurrentCulture" first day of the week and for an array I needed to know the exact Daynumber.. so here are my first extensions:

public static class DateTimeExtensions
{
    //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38039/how-can-i-get-the-datetime-for-the-start-of-the-week
    //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1788508/calculate-date-with-monday-as-dayofweek1
    public static DateTime StartOfWeek(this DateTime dt)
    {
        //difference in days
        int diff = (int)dt.DayOfWeek - (int)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek; //sunday=always0, monday=always1, etc.

        //As a result we need to have day 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 
        if (diff < 0)
        {
            diff += 7;
        }
        return dt.AddDays(-1 * diff).Date;
    }

    public static int DayNoOfWeek(this DateTime dt)
    {
        //difference in days
        int diff = (int)dt.DayOfWeek - (int)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek; //sunday=always0, monday=always1, etc.

        //As a result we need to have day 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 
        if (diff < 0)
        {
            diff += 7;
        }
        return diff + 1; //Make it 1..7
    }
}

Answer 3

Modulo in C# works bad for -1mod7 (should be 6, c# returns -1) so... "oneliner" solution to this will look like this :)

private static DateTime GetFirstDayOfWeek(DateTime date)
    {
        return date.AddDays(-(((int)date.DayOfWeek - 1) - (int)Math.Floor((double)((int)date.DayOfWeek - 1) / 7) * 7));
    }

Answer 4

Calculating this way lets you choose which day of the week indicates the start of a new week (in the example I chose Monday).

Note that doing this calculation for a day that is a Monday will give the current Monday and not the previous one.

//Replace with whatever input date you want
DateTime inputDate = DateTime.Now;

//For this example, weeks start on Monday
int startOfWeek = (int)DayOfWeek.Monday;

//Calculate the number of days it has been since the start of the week
int daysSinceStartOfWeek = ((int)inputDate.DayOfWeek + 7 - startOfWeek) % 7;

DateTime previousStartOfWeek = inputDate.AddDays(-daysSinceStartOfWeek);

Answer 5

We like one-liners : Get the difference between the current culture's first day of week and the current day then subtract the number of days from the current day

var weekStartDate = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-((int)now.DayOfWeek - (int)DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.FirstDayOfWeek));

Answer 6

Ugly but it at least gives the right dates back

With start of week set by system:

    public static DateTime FirstDateInWeek(this DateTime dt)
    {
        while (dt.DayOfWeek != System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek)
            dt = dt.AddDays(-1);
        return dt;
    }

Without:

    public static DateTime FirstDateInWeek(this DateTime dt, DayOfWeek weekStartDay)
    {
        while (dt.DayOfWeek != weekStartDay)
            dt = dt.AddDays(-1);
        return dt;
    }