Weird Date Format Help

Question

I created an extension method that uses the built-in ASP.NET serializer to serialize my objects into JSON to send back to my server via AJAX like so:

namespace ExtensionMethods.Json
{
public static class JsonHelper
{
    public static string ToJson(this object obj)
    {
        JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        return serializer.Serialize(obj);
    }

    public static string ToJson(this object obj, int recursionDepth)
    {
        JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        serializer.RecursionLimit = recursionDepth;
        return serializer.Serialize(obj);
    }
}
}

//usage
String json = myObject.ToJson();

This works fine, except for dates, as it sends back dates in this format:

/Date(1291276800000)/

Is there a way to fix this serverside so that the date comes into something more manageable, or will have to do some stupid character parsing on the client side (ie, scrape the digits out of the parens and try to set a date using that number as milliseconds)? Or is there a better way I'm simply overlooking? I've tried Date.parse([the date]) but it errors out with "Invalid date format".

That seems like a valid JSON date to me... I am confused to why is this a problem? — Ilia G, Dec 03 '10 at 04:15
@liho1eye - i was unaware this was a standard format, but have figured out a way to fix it :) — Jason, Dec 03 '10 at 18:30
really? You figured out a way to fix it, after asking everyone for help, and now you're not going to post how you fixed it to help other people with the same problem? — Ryan Lundy, May 12 '11 at 20:49
@kyralessa - i posted the code i wrote to solve this. hope this helps! — Jason, May 12 '11 at 22:07
thanks. (For my own purposes I ended up just returning the date I needed as a string, so I didn't have to worry about the weird /Date( stuff.) — Ryan Lundy, May 12 '11 at 22:51

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

3

That is a valid Json Date. Have a look at this other SO question to help you get that date back. How do I format a Microsoft JSON date?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Community

1
1

answered Dec 03 '10 at 04:35

Chase Florell

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FYI, the highest voted answer in that linked question is the best way, not the accepted answer. – Jason Dec 03 '10 at 18:33

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 03 '10 at 04:36

I used JavaScript Date Format date format extension of the Date type. It has worked well with the JSON formatted dates.

I include the .js file and get my dates formatted like this:

function formatJsonDate(jsonDate, formatString) {
    var dt = new Date(+jsonDate.replace(/\/Date\((\d+)\)\//, '$1'));
    return dt.format(formatString);
}

var formattedDate = formatJsonDate(jsonDate, "mm/dd/yyyy");

There are even some predefined date format masks such as :

// Some common format strings
dateFormat.masks = {
    "default":      "ddd mmm dd yyyy HH:MM:ss",
    shortDate:      "m/d/yy",
    mediumDate:     "mmm d, yyyy",
    longDate:       "mmmm d, yyyy",
    fullDate:       "dddd, mmmm d, yyyy",
    shortTime:      "h:MM TT",
    mediumTime:     "h:MM:ss TT",
    longTime:       "h:MM:ss TT Z",
    isoDate:        "yyyy-mm-dd",
    isoTime:        "HH:MM:ss",
    isoDateTime:    "yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:MM:ss",
    isoUtcDateTime: "UTC:yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:MM:ss'Z'"
};

voted up because it's useful, but i was trying to avoid using external libraries. — Jason, Dec 03 '10 at 18:31

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 03 '10 at 04:13

I had this problem too and decided to just move all of my date objects over to Unix timestamps and parse them back. It's extra work, but it keeps the funny formatting out. If you have a class variable of the long datatype it should hold a timestamp pretty nicely.

There's some pretty solid samples over here.

http://www.epochconverter.com/

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 12 '11 at 22:07

For the answer to this, this is basically what I used:

function parseJsonDate (date, shortFormat) {
    if (date != null) {
        var d = new Date(parseInt(date.substr(6)));
            if (shortFormat) {
                return (d.getMonth() + 1) + '/' + d.getDate() + '/' +
                          d.getFullYear().toString().substr(2);
            }
            return d;
    } else {
            return null;
    }
}

Weird Date Format Help

4 Answers4