Linq to SQL DateTime values are local (Kind=Unspecified) - How do I make it UTC?

Question

Isn\'t there a (simple) way to tell Linq To SQL classes that a particular DateTime property should be considered as UTC (i.e. having the Kind property of the DateTime type t

Answer 1

The generated LinqToSql code provides extensibility points, so you can set values when the objects are loaded.

The key is to create a partial class which extends the generated class, and then implement the OnLoaded partial method.

For instance, let's say your class is Person, so you have a generated partial Person class in Blah.designer.cs.

Extend the partial class by creating a new class (must be in a different file), as follows:

public partial class Person {

  partial void OnLoaded() {
    this._BirthDate = DateTime.SpecifyKind(this._BirthDate, DateTimeKind.Utc);
  }
}

Answer 2

I you want UTC, TimeZone class can do it for you, if you want to convert between different timezones, than TimeZoneInfo is for you. exemple from my code with TimeZoneInfo:

TimeZoneInfo cet = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Central European Standard Time");
ac.add_datetime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(DateTime.Now, cet);