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

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