DateTime support

Applies To:# OData WebApi v7 for aspnet webapi supported OData AspNet WebApi V7# OData Webapi for Webapi supported OData AspNet WebApi V6

This sample will introduce how to support DateTime type in Web API OData V4.

Build DateTime Type

OData V4 doesn't include DateTime as primitive type. Web API OData V4 uses DateTimeOffset to represent the DateTime. For example, if user defines a model as:

public class Customer
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    public DateTime Birthday { get; set; }
}

The metadata document for Customer entity type will be:

<EntityType Name="Customer">
    <Key>
        <PropertyRef Name="Id" />
    </Key>
    <Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false" />
    <Property Name="Birthday" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset" Nullable="false" />
</EntityType>

Time Zone Configuration

By Default, converting between DateTimeOffset and DateTime will lose the Time Zone information. Therefore, Web API provides a API to config the Time Zone information on server side. For example:

HttpConfiguration configuration = ...
TimeZoneInfo timeZoneInfo = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Pacific Standard Time"); // -8:00
configuration.SetTimeZoneInfo(timeZoneInfo);

$filter DateTime

Since Web API OData 5.6, it supports to filter on DateTime type. For example:

GET ~/Customers?$filter=Birthday lt cast(2015-04-01T04:11:31%2B08:00,Edm.DateTimeOffset)
GET ~/Customers?$filter=year(Birthday) eq 2010

$orderby DateTime

Since Web API OData 5.6, it supports to orderby on DateTime type. For example:

GET ~/Customers?$orderby=Birthday
GET ~/Customers?$orderby=Birthday desc