Question

I am confused with the DateTime component of .net. The server is running in UTC +4 and my clients are in different timezones. So the time on the server is in UTC+4 mode. I’ve already tried to cast it to UniversalTime and to send it in ToBinary before sending it to client, but on client machine the code looks like

if ((Program.license.EndDate.ToUniversalTime() 
    - DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime()).TotalMinutes <= 5)
{ 
    //dosomething 
}

still works wrong.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You have to know the DateType of the DateTime being sent from the client (Local, Universal, or Unspecified). If you try to cast an Unspecified type as universal, from what I understand, it will be handled as local time. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong.)

Best practice with server/client dates and times is to always use UTC. In .Net use DateTime.UtcNow instead of DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime().