Parsing and Serializing 3rd Party API DateTime JSON Data

A short post to note datetime formatter syntax.

When parsing JSON data from an API and serializing data to POCOs in C#,   each JSON record contained a property created_at  that indicated when the record was created.

For example:

{

"created_at": "Sun Mar 12 10:39:02 +0000 2023",

"id": 1635228972349890560,

"id_str": "1635228972349890560",

"text": "{some text}",

"truncated": true,

"entities": {

"symbols": [],

"user_mentions": []

},

"in_reply_to_status_id": null,

"in_reply_to_screen_name": null,

"coordinates": null,

"place": null

"lang": "en"

}

Problem

When using the default serializer with this data, a parsing exception is thrown when trying to map the field created_at to a DateTime object.

DataV1 responseDataDTO = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DataV1>(jsonResponse);

The Solution

The solution for this is to use DateTime.ParseExact, passing in the JSON, setting the following DateTime formatter, and setting the culture to Invariant

For example:

DataV1 responseDataDTO = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DataV1>(jsonResponse);

DateTime parsedCreatedDate =

DateTime.ParseExact(responseDataDTO.created_at, "ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss +0000 yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

The output field (parsedCreatedDate) can then be used in the application

Resources

Learn and read more about DateTime.ParseExact here and InvariantCulture  here.