How do I format a Microsoft JSON date?

Question

I\'m taking my first crack at Ajax with jQuery. I\'m getting my data onto my page, but I\'m having some trouble with the JSON data that is returned for Date data types. Basi

Answer 1

You also can use the JavaScript library moment.js, which comes in handy when you plan do deal with different localized formats and perform other operations with dates values:

function getMismatch(id) {
    $.getJSON("Main.aspx?Callback=GetMismatch",
    { MismatchId: id },

    function (result) {
        $("#AuthMerchId").text(result.AuthorizationMerchantId);
        $("#SttlMerchId").text(result.SettlementMerchantId);
        $("#CreateDate").text(moment(result.AppendDts).format("L"));
        $("#ExpireDate").text(moment(result.ExpiresDts).format("L"));
        $("#LastUpdate").text(moment(result.LastUpdateDts).format("L"));
        $("#LastUpdatedBy").text(result.LastUpdateNt);
        $("#ProcessIn").text(result.ProcessIn);
    }
    );
    return false;
}

Setting up localization is as easy as adding configuration files (you get them at momentjs.com) to your project and configuring the language:

moment.lang('de');

Answer 2

What if .NET returns...

return DateTime.Now.ToString("u"); //"2013-09-17 15:18:53Z"

And then in JavaScript...

var x = new Date("2013-09-17 15:18:53Z");

Answer 3

Don't over-think this. Like we've done for decades, pass a numeric offset from the de-facto standard epoch of 1 Jan 1970 midnight GMT/UTC/&c in number of seconds (or milliseconds) since this epoch. JavaScript likes it, Java likes it, C likes it, and the Internet likes it.

Answer 4

This may can also help you.

 function ToJavaScriptDate(value) { //To Parse Date from the Returned Parsed Date
        var pattern = /Date\(([^)]+)\)/;
        var results = pattern.exec(value);
        var dt = new Date(parseFloat(results[1]));
        return (dt.getMonth() + 1) + "/" + dt.getDate() + "/" + dt.getFullYear();
    }

Answer 5

Mootools solution:

new Date(Date(result.AppendDts)).format('%x')

Requires mootools-more. Tested using mootools-1.2.3.1-more on Firefox 3.6.3 and IE 7.0.5730.13

Answer 6

The original example:

/Date(1224043200000)/  

does not reflect the formatting used by WCF when sending dates via WCF REST using the built-in JSON serialization. (at least on .NET 3.5, SP1)

I found the answer here helpful, but a slight edit to the regex is required, as it appears that the timezone GMT offset is being appended onto the number returned (since 1970) in WCF JSON.

In a WCF service I have:

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(
    RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
    ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
    BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest
    )]
ApptVisitLinkInfo GetCurrentLinkInfo( int appointmentsId );

ApptVisitLinkInfo is defined simply:

public class ApptVisitLinkInfo {
    string Field1 { get; set; }
    DateTime Field2 { get; set; }
    ...
}

When "Field2" is returned as Json from the service the value is:

/Date(1224043200000-0600)/

Notice the timezone offset included as part of the value.

The modified regex:

/\/Date\((.*?)\)\//gi

It's slightly more eager and grabs everything between the parens, not just the first number. The resulting time sinze 1970, plus timezone offset can all be fed into the eval to get a date object.

The resulting line of JavaScript for the replace is:

replace(/\/Date\((.*?)\)\//gi, "new Date($1)");