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c#asp.netdatetimetimezone
Shorttylad
Shorttylad

Reputation: 306

DateTime.TryParse seems to be losing the original timezone information and converting to server time

I have an ASP.Net form with a date/time control on it. If the form is posted back due to validation errors, the date/time is converted to the servers timezone and set as the value in the date/time control - causing the original timezone information to be lost.

I am using DateTime.TryParse which parses the date into the server time and seems to be losing the original timezone. I want to check if the page is a PostBack and skip the server timezone conversion if at all possible - so I keep the original value.

I tried using TryParseExact which has the timezone information however I couldn't work out what format I should be sending in.

string hiddenDateTime = "2019-09-01T18:28:00.000+0800";
DateTime dateValue;
DateTime.TryParse(hiddenDateTime, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, 
                  DateTimeStyles.None, out dateValue);

Is there a way to stop this conversion to local from happening and keeping the original timezone?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 2860

Answers (1)

Soner Gönül
Soner Gönül

Reputation: 98810

First of all, this is how DateTime.TryParse method works;

If s contains no time zone information, result contains a DateTime value whose Kind property is DateTimeKind.Unspecified when the method returns. If the string to be parsed contains time zone information, result contains a DateTime value whose Kind property is DateTimeKind.Local when the method returns.

DateTime object itself neither keep timezone information nor keep UTC Offset value. When you use some parsing operations on a string, it is usually normal to lost these values.

It is not clear what value you try to get exactly but I suggest a few things to get;

  1. If you use DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal instead of DateTimeStyles.None, you will get a DateTime as 9/1/2019 10:28:00 AM which has Utc as a Kind property since this enum value is exactly what this for.
  2. Other than this, since your string has a UTC Offset value, I would parse it to DateTimeOffset instead of DateTime. With parsing to DateTimeOffset, you can keep both of them on it's Offset and DateTime properties.

Upvotes: 10

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