WebApi Json.NET custom date handling

Question

I have globally explicitly configured my MVC4 app to use the JSON.NET serializer . I know i have the choice of using the ISO standard dates or the old Microsoft date format when serializing dates.

But how can i output my own custom dateTime format string ,like :"dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm".

I could do this in MVC3 when plugging in Json.NET as the default serializer but cant seem to do it in MVC4 .

So far in the application_start i have done :

 var settings = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings; 
 JsonSerializerSettings jSettings = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializerSettings()
 {
 Formatting = Formatting.Indented,
 DateTimeZoneHandling = DateTimeZoneHandling.Utc,
 };
 jSettings.Converters.Add(new MyDateTimeConvertor() );
 settings = jSettings;

and the custom converter i tried to impliment is like so :

 public class MyDateTimeConvertor : DateTimeConverterBase
 {
 public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
 {
 return DateTime.Parse(reader.Value.ToString());
 }
 public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
 {
 writer.WriteValue(((DateTime)value).ToString("dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm"));
 }
 }

Anyhelp would be appreciated :)

• Brain2000: Keep in mind the root of your issue here is you did not assign jSettings to GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings. Instead you assigned it to "settings", which is a local variable.

Answer 1

Change your setting set up code like this:

JsonMediaTypeFormatter jsonFormatter = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter;
JsonSerializerSettings jSettings = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializerSettings() 
{
 Formatting = Formatting.Indented,
 DateTimeZoneHandling = DateTimeZoneHandling.Utc
};
jSettings.Converters.Add(new MyDateTimeConvertor());
jsonFormatter.SerializerSettings = jSettings;

In your code you are just changing local variable value.

• P0DD3R5: so i was assigning the the newly configured Jsonserializersettings to serializer settings instead of its parent jsonFormatter??....hmmm quite a lot of it was guess work tbh, but thankyou for your help :)

Answer 2

Thanks, I was going crazy, this worked very well for me,paste this in the Global.asax.cs

JsonMediaTypeFormatter jsonFormatter = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter;
JsonSerializerSettings jSettings =...

create a class MyDateTimeConvertor, paste this in the class

public class MyDateTimeConvertor : DateTimeConverterBase
{
 public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
 {
 return DateTime...

wep api mvc4, web services, custom date format.