Force JSON.NET to include milliseconds when serializing DateTime (even if ms component is zero)

by

We ran into this same issue on my current project. We are using Web API (and hence JSON.Net) to implement a REST API. We discovered that, when serializing DateTime objects, JSON.Net omits the trailing zeros from the milliseconds, or omits the milliseconds from the date entirely if it is zero. Our clients were expecting a fixed-length date-time string, with exactly 3 digits for the milliseconds. We fixed it by doing the following in Application_Start():

JsonSerializerSettings settings = HttpConfiguration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings;
IsoDateTimeConverter dateConverter = new IsoDateTimeConverter 
{ 
    DateTimeFormat = "yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss.fff'Z'" 
};
settings.Converters.Add(dateConverter);

If you’re not using Web API, you can do the same thing by creating a new instance of JsonSerializerSettings, adding the IsoDateTimeConverter to it as shown above, then passing the serializer settings to JsonConvert.SerializeObject().

Note: If you’re serializing a DateTimeOffset or a local DateTime and you want to include the timezone offset, replace the quoted 'Z' in the above format with an unquoted K.
See Custom Date and Time Format Strings in the documentation for more info.

More Related Contents:

  1. JSON.NET Error Self referencing loop detected for type
  2. Does Json.NET cache types’ serialization information?
  3. Cannot deserialize the JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) into type ‘ ‘ because type requires JSON object (e.g. {“name”:”value”}) to deserialize correctly
  4. How to deserialize an array of values with a fixed schema to a strongly typed data class?
  5. Detect if deserialized object is missing a field with the JsonConvert class in Json.NET
  6. Json.net serialize/deserialize derived types?
  7. Using JsonConvert.DeserializeObject to deserialize Json to a C# POCO class
  8. JSON.Net throws StackOverflowException when using [JsonConvert()]
  9. How to ignore JsonProperty(PropertyName = “someName”) when serializing json?
  10. Json.Net: Serialize/Deserialize property as a value, not as an object
  11. Newtonsoft.JSON cannot convert model with TypeConverter attribute
  12. How to serialize/deserialize a custom collection with additional properties using Json.Net
  13. Deserializing JSON to abstract class
  14. Not ableTo Serialize Dictionary with Complex key using Json.net
  15. Custom Deserialization using Json.NET
  16. Serialize Property, but Do Not Deserialize Property in Json.Net
  17. Json.NET custom serialization with JsonConverter – how to get the “default” behavior
  18. Cannot deserialize the current JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3])
  19. Cannot deserialize JSON array into type – Json.NET
  20. Ignoring null fields in Json.net
  21. Repeated serialization and deserialization creates duplicate items
  22. Convert DataTable to JSON with key per row
  23. Deserialize specific enum into system.enum in Json.Net
  24. Serializing an interface/abstract object using NewtonSoft.JSON
  25. Json.NET: Deserializing nested dictionaries
  26. Change default date serialization in WCF
  27. JSonNet boolean serialization
  28. Json.net deserialization null guid case
  29. Configure Json.NET serialization settings on a class level
  30. JSON.NET Serializes Empty JSON

Leave a Comment