Is it possible to instruct JSON.Net to serialize DateTime as UTC even if no time zone is specified?
asp.net entity-framework javascript json.net
Question
Dates in my database are stored as Utc. But when I retreieve them w/ the entity framework they come out as type unspecified.
When JSON.Net serializes them they are not in Utc format. Is there a way to tell JSON.Net to serialize DateTimes as Utc even if their type is not specified as Utc?
Accepted Answer
Set DateTimeZoneHandling on JsonSerializerSettings to Utc. That will convert all dates to UTC before serializing them.
public void SerializeObjectDateTimeZoneHandling()
{
string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(
new DateTime(2000, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, DateTimeKind.Unspecified),
new JsonSerializerSettings
{
DateTimeZoneHandling = DateTimeZoneHandling.Utc
});
Assert.AreEqual(@"""2000-01-01T01:01:01Z""", json);
}
Documentation: DateTimeZoneHandling setting
Popular Answer
The response above totally works, and so I used that to create an attribute to convert an API response from PST to UTC.
First I needed to create a JsonConverter
public class UTCDateTimeConverter : Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConverter {
private TimeZoneInfo pacificZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Pacific Standard Time");
public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType) {
return objectType == typeof(DateTime);
}
public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer) {
if (reader.Value == null) return null;
var pacificTime = DateTime.Parse(reader.Value.ToString());
return TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(pacificTime, pacificZone);
}
public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer) {
writer.WriteValue(TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc((DateTime) value, pacificZone));
}
}
Then I had to apply that to the properties that needed to be converted
public class Order{
[JsonConverter(typeof(UTCDateTimeConverter))]
public DateTime OrderDate {get;set;}
}
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