Parsing JSON DateTime from Newtonsoft's JSON Serializer

Question

I've serialized an object using Newtonsoft's JSON serializer, and the DateTime has come through as:

/Date(1237588418563+0000)/ 

When I $.evalJSON() on that, it is an object but I can't find any normal Date methods like toUTCString on it.

Any ideas what I can do with this?

Answer 1

I came up with a different approach which might be useful to some. Basically I create my own CustomDateConverter that I call when I need it. The converter takes 2 parameters, a date format e.g. yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss and a TimeZoneInfo, which allows me to convert the date from UTC to the user's time zone:

public class JSONCustomDateConverter : DateTimeConverterBase {     private TimeZoneInfo _timeZoneInfo;     private string _dateFormat;      public JSONCustomDateConverter(string dateFormat, TimeZoneInfo timeZoneInfo)     {         _dateFormat = dateFormat;         _timeZoneInfo = timeZoneInfo;     }     public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)     {         return objectType == typeof(DateTime);     }      public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)     {         throw new NotImplementedException();     }      public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)     {         writer.WriteValue(TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(Convert.ToDateTime(value), _timeZoneInfo).ToString(_dateFormat));         writer.Flush();     } 

You can use it like this:

 var jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(myObject, Formatting.None, new JsonSerializerSettings { NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore, Converters = new List<JsonConverter>() { new JSONCustomDateConverter("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", loggedUser.Timezone) } }); 

Obviously you could remove anything related to time zone if you only want custom date formatting. Let me know it that helped!

Answer 2

Use one of the JsonConverters that come with Json.NET for working with dates to get a better format. JavaScriptDateTimeConverter will automatically give you a JavaScript date.

public class LogEntry     {       public string Details { get; set; }       public DateTime LogDate { get; set; } }  [Test] public void WriteJsonDates() {       LogEntry entry = new LogEntry       {         LogDate = new DateTime(2009, 2, 15, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc),         Details = "Application started."       };         string defaultJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(entry);       // {"Details":"Application started.","LogDate":"\/Date(1234656000000)\/"}         string javascriptJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(entry, new JavaScriptDateTimeConverter());       // {"Details":"Application started.","LogDate":new Date(1234656000000)}    string isoJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(entry, new IsoDateTimeConverter());       // {"Details":"Application started.","LogDate":"2009-02-15T00:00:00Z"}     } 

Documentation: Serializing Dates in JSON with Json.NET