Send JSON date to WCF service - json

Question

I want to post json object to my WCF service
My only problem is his date property. I get the date from an jquery datepicker and i want to get it in my service as c# datetime.
My service:
namespace Employee
{
[ServiceContract]
public interface IService1
{
[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method = "POST",
RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)]
bool UpdateEmployee(Employee Employee);
}
}
And this is Employee:
[DataContract]
public class Employee
{
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Department { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public int Salary { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public DateTime Hired { get; set; }
}
All the other properties work fine. I just need to convert my date string to json date.

Answer 1

The expected format for DateTime object is not the format returned by jQuery's date picker. WCF expects the date in the ASP.NET format (e.g., \/Date(1234567890)\/).
You can use other formats, though, but it's not simple (at least not until .NET 4.0; on 4.5 this got a lot better). Basically, you'd use a string property (which can be private, if your service is running under full trust) which would get the value from the wire, then hook it up to a DateTime property during the serialization episodes. There's more information about this trick at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2011/09/06/wcf-extensibility-serialization-callbacks.aspx, and you can see it on the code below.
namespace StackOverflow_11105856
{
[ServiceContract]
public interface IService1
{
[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method = "POST",
RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)]
string UpdateEmployee(Employee Employee);
}
public class Service : IService1
{
public string UpdateEmployee(Employee Employee)
{
return string.Format("Name={0},Hired={1}", Employee.Name, Employee.Hired.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));
}
}
[DataContract]
public class Employee
{
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Department { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public int Salary { get; set; }
public DateTime Hired { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "Hired")]
private string HiredForSerialization { get; set; }
[OnSerializing]
void OnSerializing(StreamingContext ctx)
{
this.HiredForSerialization = this.Hired.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}
[OnDeserializing]
void OnDeserializing(StreamingContext ctx)
{
this.HiredForSerialization = "1900-01-01";
}
[OnDeserialized]
void OnDeserialized(StreamingContext ctx)
{
this.Hired = DateTime.ParseExact(this.HiredForSerialization, "MM/dd/yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}
}
}
And the jQuery call:
function StackOverflow_11105856_Test() {
var url = "/StackOverflow_11105856.svc/UpdateEmployee";
var data = {
Name: "John Doe",
Department: "Accounting",
Salary: 50000,
Hired: $("#StackOverflow_11105856_datepicker").val()
};
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: url,
contentType: "application/json",
data: JSON.stringify({ Employee: data }),
success: function (result) {
$("#result").text(result.UpdateEmployeeResult);
}
});
}

Answer 2

You should try changing the property BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped to BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare. This way the framework won't add any extra XML decorations.
Also, you should check the date format coming from the client.
Perhaps you should send it from the client in a pre-set format and then have a string property in your object, rather than a DateTime one.
You can add a read-only property which converts the date string to a DateTime, using the already known format.