Passing UTC DateTime to Web API HttpGet Method results in local time

Question

I\'m trying to pass a UTC date as a query string parameter to a Web API method. The URL looks like

/api/order?endDate=2014-04-01T00:00:00Z&zoneId=4
         


        

Answer 1

If you want the conversion to be transparent, then you could use a custom TypeConverter:

public sealed class UtcDateTimeConverter : DateTimeConverter
{
    public override object ConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, CultureInfo culture, object value)
    {
        return ((DateTime)base.ConvertFrom(context, culture, value)).ToUniversalTime();
    }
}

and wire it up using:

TypeDescriptor.AddAttributes(typeof(DateTime), new TypeConverterAttribute(typeof(UtcDateTimeConverter)));

Then the query string parameter will be instantiated as DateTimeKind.Utc.