Handling dates with Asp.Net MVC and KnockoutJS

Question

I recently started working with KnockoutJs and quickly realized using the default Json(myModelWithADate) resulted in the default json encoding of \\/Date(

Answer 1

I'm using the following code to generate short date strings. I use it for my date strings and jQueryUi Date Picker.

class T
    {
        public DateTime d { get; set; }
    }

static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var k = new T { d = DateTime.Now };

        var formatter = new IsoDateTimeConverter();
        formatter.DateTimeFormat = "d";
        var s = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(k, formatter);
    }

This generates the following JSON

"{"d":"4/21/2012"}"

This results clean JavaScript code for me.

Answer 2

I loved Andres Toro's answer except that in my case, input fields are expecting formatted strings. So I am using JQuery to format my dates according to my favorite format provided by my helper @Html.ConvertDateFormat() Hope this helps someone day.

var mapping = {
    'ActualDateTime': {
        update: function (options) {
            var d = /\/Date\((\d*)\)\//.exec(options.data);
            return (d) ? $.datepicker.formatDate('@Html.ConvertDateFormat()', new Date(+d[1])) : value;
            //return "5/10/2017";
        }
    }
};
var paymentModel = ko.mapping.fromJS(modelJSON, mapping);