What is the “right” JSON date format?

Question

I\'ve seen so many different standards for the JSON date format:

\"\\\"\\\\/Date(1335205592410)\\\\/\\\"\"         .NET JavaScriptSerializer
\"\\\"\\\\/Date(         


        

Answer 1

"2014-01-01T23:28:56.782Z"

The date is represented in a standard and sortable format that represents a UTC time (indicated by the Z). ISO 8601 also supports time zones by replacing the Z with + or – value for the timezone offset:

"2014-02-01T09:28:56.321-10:00"

There are other variations of the timezone encoding in the ISO 8601 spec, but the –10:00 format is the only TZ format that current JSON parsers support. In general it’s best to use the UTC based format (Z) unless you have a specific need for figuring out the time zone in which the date was produced (possible only in server side generation).

NB:

    var date = new Date();
    console.log(date); // Wed Jan 01 2014 13:28:56 GMT- 
    1000 (Hawaiian Standard Time) 
        
    var json = JSON.stringify(date);
    console.log(json);  // "2014-01-01T23:28:56.782Z"

To tell you that's the preferred way even though JavaScript doesn't have a standard format for it

// JSON encoded date
var json = "\"2014-01-01T23:28:56.782Z\"";

var dateStr = JSON.parse(json);  
console.log(dateStr); // 2014-01-01T23:28:56.782Z