Change default format for DateTime parsing in ASP.NET Core

Question

I get a Date in an ASP.NET Core Controller like this:

public class MyController:Controller{
    public IActionResult Test(DateTime date) {

    }
}

Answer 1

If you don't mind using the generic StatusCode method to make this call, you can do something like the following:

internal IActionResult CreateResponse(int code, object content = null)
    {
        Type t = content?.GetType();
        bool textContent = t == typeof(string) || t == typeof(bool);
        //
        JsonSerializerSettings dateFormatSettings = new JsonSerializerSettings
        {

            DateFormatString = myDateFormat
        };

        string bodyContent = content == null || string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(content + "")
                    ? null
                    : textContent
                        ? content + ""
                        : JsonConvert.SerializeObject(content, dateFormatSettings);

        ObjectResult or = base.StatusCode(code, bodyContent);
        string mediaType = 
                    !textContent
                        ? "application/json"
                        : "text/plain";
        or.ContentTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue(mediaType));
        return or;
    }

You can add this to a base class and call it like:

return base.CreateResponse(StatusCodes.Status200OK, new { name = "My Name", age = 23});

It's up to you if you want to create your own Ok, BadRequest, etc...methods, but for me this works and I hope it helps anybody else. You could even default int code = 200, if most of your requests are GETs. This code assumes you either want to respond with a string, boolean, or a custom object, but you can easily handle all primitives by checking Type.GetTypeInfo().IsPrimitive and even doing some checks for decimal, string, DateTime, TimeSpan, DateTimeOffset, or Guid.