Convert date UTC to a specific timezone using a JsonConverter

Question

I am sorry for my formatiing.

I am receiving JSON response from the database, I need to convert the dates as per-user time zone he/she is in. I am receiving user time zone as "timezone": 5.5, or "timezone": -6.

Just for information, my application is running in Azure. I should also check daylight saving for timezones. application is developed in c#. I have tried this and this look like Nodatime is suitable for converting the date based on the timezone. I am completely new in this and try to figure out how I can change Date values in JSON based on time zone.

I have tried below code to see if dates are changing but nothing happens. I am not sure where I can put timezone. Any help is appreciated.

 ` var date = "2020-08-12T18:30:13.000";
    var json = $"{{\"Date\": \"{date}\"}}";

    var pattern = ZonedDateTimePattern.CreateWithInvariantCulture(
        "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z",
        DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb
    );

    var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings
    {
        DateParseHandling = DateParseHandling.None,
        Converters = { new NodaPatternConverter<ZonedDateTime>(pattern) }
    };
    var dateObj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DateObj>(json, settings);
    Console.WriteLine(dateObj.Date);`

Below is JSON i am receiving

{
"entity": [
    {
        "JobId": 691230,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-12T18:30:16.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-12T18:32:04.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 315621376,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-12T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 691230,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-12T18:30:16.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-12T18:32:04.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 315621376,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-12T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 694338,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-13T12:30:15.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-13T12:32:07.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 282066944,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 693664,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-13T06:30:24.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-13T06:32:13.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 255852544,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 692966,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Windows File System",
        "Instance": "N/A",
        "BackupSet": "defaultBackupSet",
        "Subclient": "default",
        " Backup Type": "Incremental",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-13T02:00:19.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-13T04:00:14.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 120,
        "Size of Application": 514155115394,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 692656,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-13T00:30:17.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-13T00:32:13.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 124780544,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 0,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 691827,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "default",
        " Backup Type": "Incremental",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-12T21:00:24.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-12T22:51:53.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 111,
        "Size of Application": 683671552,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 1,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    },
    {
        "JobId": 691230,
        "Operation Type": "Backup",
        "Client": "cnwxwdevwms01",
        "Agent": "Oracle Database",
        "Instance": "T0340X",
        "BackupSet": "default",
        "Subclient": "ArchiveLog",
        " Backup Type": "Full",
        "Start Time": "2020-08-12T18:30:16.000",
        "End Time": "2020-08-12T18:32:04.000",
        "Duration in Mins": 2,
        "Size of Application": 315621376,
        "Job Status": "Completed",
        "dt": "2020-08-13T00:00:00.000",
        "age": 1,
        "original_0": {
            "numberOfDays": "10",
            "serverName": "cnwxwdevwms01"
        }
    }
]
}

Are the dates stored in your DB as UTC ? Usually, they would be if they would be formatted as like this : '2020-08-12T18:30:13.000Z'. If they are not UTC, how do you know their which timezone they would be set with ? — Julien, Aug 15 '20 at 13:20
In future, please don't delete a question and then just reask it slightly differently. Instead, *edit* the existing question. — Jon Skeet, Aug 17 '20 at 16:23

Julien · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-15T14:56:02.153

Let me know if this can work for you.

I haven't used Nodatime as I don't think it's necessary for the purpose of timezone conversion. The problem I see is that your datetime does not contain any timezone information. .Net handles this as being Local. As the Microsoft documentation states: The time zone component of DateTimeKind.Utc date and time values uses "Z" (which stands for zero offset) to represent UTC.

Edit (per @Sanjeev Gautam's comment): As your function runs on Azure, you will need to find a way to extract the local timezone of your user. In the example below, I used UTC-9.

Specifying that your datetime are set with UTC allows you to this:

// Object Class
class DateObj
{
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }
}


// JsonConverter
class DateTimeConverterTimeZone : JsonConverter<DateTime>
{
    public TimeZoneInfo TimeZone { get; set; }

    public DateTimeConverterTimeZone(TimeZoneInfo timezone)
    {
        TimeZone = timezone;
    }

    public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, DateTime value, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        writer.WriteValue(value.ToUniversalTime());
    }

    public override DateTime ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, DateTime existingValue, bool hasExistingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        DateTime  dt = (DateTime) reader.Value; 

        var newDateTime= TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(dt, TimeZone);
        return newDateTime;
    }
}

//Deserialization
var date = "2020-08-12T18:30:13.000Z";
var json = $"{{\"Date\": \"{date}\"}}";
var convertedDateTime = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DateObj>(json, new DateTimeConverterTimeZone(TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("UTC-09")));

hi Julien, Thanks for ur response. i cannot go for DateTimeZoneHandling.Local as my application is running in Azure, it always takes Azure time zone. We need to give user timezone. — Sanjeev Gautam, Aug 15 '20 at 14:23
@SanjeevGautam - Thanks for your comment. I omitted the 'Azure' part, apologies. I updated the response to use a custom JsonConverter. — Julien, Aug 15 '20 at 14:57
thanks, it worked with date have shared. When I tried with my actual JSON dates are not converting. var convertedDateTimeFinal = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(response.Content, new DateTimeConverterTimeZone(TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("UTC-09"))); Any help please. — Sanjeev Gautam, Aug 15 '20 at 15:17
The date you shared didn't have the Z in the end that specified it was a UTC date. Have you tried to add Z at the end of every dates inside your Json ? — Julien, Aug 15 '20 at 16:07

Convert date UTC to a specific timezone using a JsonConverter

1 Answers1