Passing DateTimeOffset as WebAPI query string

Question

I\'ve got a WebAPI action that looks like so:

[Route(\"api/values/{id}\")]
public async Task Delete(string id, DateTimeOffset date         


        

Answer 1

Best way to find out is to ask the WebAPI to generate the expected URL format itself:

public class OffsetController : ApiController
{
    [Route("offset", Name = "Offset")]
    public IHttpActionResult Get(System.DateTimeOffset date)
    {
        return this.Ok("Received: " + date);
    }

    [Route("offset", Name = "Default")]
    public IHttpActionResult Get()
    {
        var routeValues = new { date = System.DateTimeOffset.Now };
        return this.RedirectToRoute("Offset", routeValues);
    }
}

When a call to /offset is made the response will return a 302 to a url that contains the 'date' parameter in the querystring. It will look something like this:

http://localhost:54955/offset?date=02/17/2015 09:25:38 +11:00

I could not find an overload of DateTimeOffset.ToString() that would generate a string value in that format except for explicitly defining the format in a string format:

DateTimeOffset.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz")

Hope that helps.