C#/ASP.NET MVC3, convert from DateTime.UtcNow, to client's timezone. How to get timezone info?

Question

I store dates as UTC, by calling DateTime.UtcNow when inserting new records. I want to convert that date to the visitor's timezone.

There's a method on TimeZoneInfo to do it:

public static DateTime ConvertTimeFromUtc(
    DateTime dateTime,
    TimeZoneInfo destinationTimeZone
)

but where can I pull TimeZoneInfo destinationTimeZone from, in asp.net mvc3? Is it reliably available in the request object?

Answer 1

Unfortunately it is not as straightforward as one would expect. The Request object will not give you the info you require. You will need to use javascript. Here is a good implementation: http://weblogs.asp.net/cprieto/archive/2010/01/03/handling-timezone-information-in-asp-net.aspx