Category: ASP.NET MVC

The jsonresult of date time is serializing to the string /Date and some integer value starting with 1970 . The problem is that the browser interprets this value accordingly to the LOCAL TimeZone – and thus the same date is going to be interpreted with a difference.

I was thinking that I can adjust from UTC time offset of the server( obtained with .NET from TimeZoneInfo.Local.BaseUtcOffset.TotalMinutes) and the UTC time offset of the client( obtained with (new Date()).getTimezoneOffset() + UTCServerMinutes; ). Unfortunately, the code does not work for SAMOA ( 13 hours difference).

Pay attention that the server is sending SAME data – just the browser is interpreting from the local user time zone.

So the solution is to convert the  date to a string ( I have chosed yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss) and interpret in javascript( see date2 below).

The server code – I have put my birthdate 16 april 1970

DateTime res = new DateTime(1970, 04, 16, 22, 0, 0);
[HttpPost]
        public JsonResult GetDateBirth()
        {

            var str = res.ToString("s");
            return Json(new { date =res, datestring=str, ok = true });

        }

The Javascript code:

function GetJsonDate() {
        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: '@Url.Action("GetDateBirth")',
            datatype: "JSON",
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            success: function (returndata) {
                if (returndata.ok) {
                    window.alert('The server is sending:' + returndata.date + " -- " + returndata.datestring);
                    var d = parseInt(returndata.date.substr(6));
                    var date1 = new Date(d);
                    var date2 = dateFromSortable(returndata.datestring);
                    var date3= getDateString(returndata.date);
                    window.alert('original: ' + date1  + '\r\n'  + ' iso correct:'+ date2 + '\r\n'+ ' utc difference not good:' + date3);

                }
                else {
                    //this is an error from the server
                    window.alert(' error : ' + returndata.message);
                }

            }
        }
        );
    }
    function dateFromSortable(dateStr) {
        var parts = dateStr.match(/\d+/g);
        return new Date(parts[0], parts[1] - 1, parts[2], parts[3], parts[4], parts[5]);
    }
    
    function getDateString(jsonDate) {
        //does not work correctly for SAMOA - it have some hours difference
        var UTCServerMinutes = @serverMinutes;
        if (jsonDate == undefined) {
            return "";
        }
        var utcTime = parseInt(jsonDate.substr(6));

        var dateUtc = new Date(utcTime);

        var minutesOffset = (new Date()).getTimezoneOffset() + UTCServerMinutes;

        var milliseconds = minutesOffset * 60000;
        var d = new Date(dateUtc.getTime() + milliseconds)
        return d;
    }

How to test it:

Run the project. Click “Get Json Date” – and you will see the three dates equal.

Now change the time zone to Samoa ( or other, if you live in Samoa )

Click again on “Get Json Date”  – the date will  same 16 april 1970 just for the date2  – obtained from dateFromSortable javascript function.

Please note that the local time zone is NOT affecting the values transmitted via ViewBag/ViewData/Model, but just the ones transmitted via Json.

The project can be downloaded from here