C# – How to serialize to dateTime

.net-2.0c++datetimexml-serialization

Working to get DateTimes for any time zone.
I'm using DateTimeOffset, and a string, and an XmlElement attribute. When I do, I get the following error:

[InvalidOperationException: 'dateTime'
is an invalid value for the
XmlElementAttribute.DataType property.
dateTime cannot be converted to
System.String.]
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlReflectionImporter.ImportTypeMapping(TypeModel
model, String ns, ImportContext
context, String dataType,
XmlAttributes a, Boolean repeats,
Boolean openModel, RecursionLimiter
limiter) +450

[InvalidOperationException: There was
an error reflecting type
'System.String'.]
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlReflectionImporter.ImportTypeMapping(TypeModel
model, String ns, ImportContext
context, String dataType,
XmlAttributes a, Boolean repeats,
Boolean openModel, RecursionLimiter
limiter) +1621
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlReflectionImporter.ImportAccessorMapping(MemberMapping
accessor, FieldModel model,
XmlAttributes a, String ns, Type
choiceIdentifierType, Boolean rpc,
Boolean openModel, RecursionLimiter
limiter) +8750
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlReflectionImporter.ImportFieldMapping(StructModel
parent, FieldModel model,
XmlAttributes a, String ns,
RecursionLimiter limiter) +139
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlReflectionImporter.InitializeStructMembers(StructMapping
mapping, StructModel model, Boolean
openModel, String typeName,
RecursionLimiter limiter) +1273

[InvalidOperationException: There was
an error reflecting property
'creationTimeX'.] …

Code:

 [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement(ElementName = "creationTime",
      DataType="dateTime")]
 public string creationTimeX
    {
        get
        {
            return this.creationTimeField.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz");
        }
        set
        {
            DateTimeOffset.TryParse(value, out this.creationTimeField);
        }
    }

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIgnoreAttribute()]
public System.DateTimeOffset creationTime
{
    get {
        return this.creationTimeField;
    }
    set {
        this.creationTimeField = value;
    }
}

Best Solution

This is what worked for me

private const string DateTimeOffsetFormatString = "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz";
private DateTimeOffset eventTimeField;

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)]
public string eventTime
{
    get { return eventTimeField.ToString(DateTimeOffsetFormatString); }
    set { eventTimeField = DateTimeOffset.Parse(value); }
}
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