Formatting Grid DateTime Data Fields to Use UTC
Environment
Product | Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core Grid |
Progress Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core version | Created with the 2022.2.913 version |
Description
The Grid converts the values in columns that are bound to DateTime
fields to local formats. How can I prevent this and keep the UTC format of the time?
Solution
Every time a date is retrieved from the database or received from the client, the DateTime Kind
property is left unspecified on the server side. The .NET framework implicitly converts such dates to local formats.
Something similar happens on the client side. When the Date
is parsed from a Number
to a Date
object, the browsers convert all dates according to the local time. For example, when you create a JavaScript date, such as new Date(1353397262112)
, browsers on different machines which use different TimeZone system settings show different string representations.
To keep the time in UTC format, apply an explicit transformation to the dates on both client and server.
If you use formats for parsing UTC date strings, apply the
zzz
specifier to render the local time. Otherwise, the current browser timezone offset will apply.
To apply the explicit transformation:
-
Use a
ViewModel
with a setter and a getter that explicitly set theDateTime Kind
to UTC.private DateTime birthDate; public DateTime BirthDate { get { return this.birthDate; } set { this.birthDate = new DateTime(value.Ticks, DateTimeKind.Utc); } }
-
Use the
requestEnd
event of the DataSource to intercept and replace the incoming Date field with the time difference.@(Html.Kendo().Grid<KendoUIMVC5.Models.Person>().Name("persons") .DataSource(dataSource => dataSource .Ajax() .Events(ev=>ev.RequestEnd("onRequestEnd")) ) // ... ) <script> var onRequestEnd = function(e) { if (e.response.Data && e.response.Data.length) { var data = e.response.Data; if (this.group().length && e.type == "read") { handleGroups(data); } else { loopRecords(data); } } } function handleGroups(groups) { for (var i = 0; i < groups.length; i++) { var gr = groups[i]; offsetDateFields(gr); // Handle the Key variable as well if (gr.HasSubgroups) { handleGroups(gr.Items) } else { loopRecords(gr.Items); } } } function loopRecords(persons) { for (var i = 0; i < persons.length; i++) { var person = persons[i]; offsetDateFields(person); } } function offsetDateFields(obj) { for (var name in obj) { var prop = obj[name]; if (typeof (prop) === "string" && prop.indexOf("/Date(") == 0) { obj[name] = prop.replace(/-?\d+/, function (n) { var offsetMiliseconds = new Date(parseInt(n)).getTimezoneOffset() * 60000; return parseInt(n) + offsetMiliseconds }); } } } </script>
To explore the complete example, see the project on how to use UTC time on both the client and the server.