Gson: JsonSyntaxException on date

Question

I am trying to use Gson to deserialize a json array, but am currently getting a JsonSyntaxException. The json string was created by a .NET MVC3 web service using JsonResult

Answer 1

Another solution is to use ISO 8601 format. This has to be configured on both Gson side as:

Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").create();

as well as on the server side, e.g. for ASP.NET MVC in Global.asax.cs file, as follows:

JsonSerializerSettings serializerSettings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
serializerSettings.Converters.Add(new IsoDateTimeConverter());
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings = serializerSettings;

The advantage of the code above is that it handles both serialization and deserialization and thus allows two way transmission of dates/times.

Note: IsoDateTimeConverter class is part of the JSON.NET library.