Parsing Date-and-Times from JavaScript to C#

Question

I have some JavaScript code that I'm trying to pass to my web service. My JavaScript code is supposed to send a date in UTC format. Locally, the time that I generated my code at was at 12:30:43 pm. When I executed my JavaScript code, the following date/time was generated:

2012-06-03T20:30:43.000Z

That date/time was generated from this code:

var now = new Date();
var utcDate = new Date(
  now.getUTCFullYear(),
  now.getUTCMonth(),
  now.getUTCDate(),
  now.getUTCHours(),
  now.getUTCMinutes(),
  now.getUTCSeconds()
);

When I pass the date/time from JavaScript back to my web service, it is serialized as shown here:

20120603163043

That looks correct to me at this point. I then need to take that string and convert it to a date/time in C#. In an attempt to do that, I'm using the following C# code:

DateTime _value = DateTime.MinValue;
DateTime.TryParseExact(value, "yyyyMMddHHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal, out _value)

When that happens, I get the following date/time. 6/3/2012 12:30:43 PM

What am I doing wrong? I was expecting the date/time to be 6/3/2012 4:30:43 PM

Mark Byers · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-03T18:37:43.313

3

The result you get is correct, but please check the Kind property of your DateTime. You'll notice it's not set to UTC but to Local.

You can use DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal to generate a DateTime with Kind set to UTC.

DateTime dateTime;
DateTime.TryParseExact(
    value,
    "yyyyMMddHHmmss",
    CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
    DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal | DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal,
    out dateTime);

See it working on ideone.

edited Jun 03 '12 at 18:37

answered Jun 03 '12 at 16:51

Mark Byers

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I would think that using the [`o` format specifier](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az4se3k1.aspx#Roundtrip) would be enough. – Oded Jun 03 '12 at 16:51

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 30 '15 at 14:47

1

If you just want to serialize using (e.g. webAPI) I find JS toISOString very useful and compatible.

//JAVASCRIPT
var d = new Date();
$toPut.dateTime = d.toISOString();
$toPut.put()

//C#
[Put("/setup/dateTime"), HttpPut]
public HttpResponseMessage SetDateTime([FromBody]DateTime dateTimeSettings )

That way you can keep your data structure and not deal with parsing.

edited Dec 30 '15 at 14:47

Shimmy Weitzhandler

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answered Oct 21 '13 at 12:00

drtf

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Hakan KOSE · Answer 3 · 2013-03-26T08:31:59.783

You must pass date parameter to web service as UTC format and then use TryParse method to convert it to C# date object.

Try this:

//Javascript
var now = new Date(); //just like: 'Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:44:40 GMT'
var utcNowString = now.toUTCString(); //pass this parameter to your web service

And this is C# code:

DateTime date;
DateTime.TryParse(jsDateString, out date); //parsed as: '21.03.2013 14:44:40'

Hope this helps.

Parsing Date-and-Times from JavaScript to C#

3 Answers3

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