Any suggestions for how to handle Dates in JSON?

[andrewducker]

Because JSON doesn't support a standard date format I'm going to have to serialise/deserialise to _something_. A quick google has found me numerous different approaches - anyone care to point me at a specific best practice

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

Unix timestamp? Or do you need partial dates?

Otherwise, the ISO format, which does. (2014-02-01T08:04:00)

If your language has serialization of its own, then you could use that and just give JSON the string (as you could in PHP, if you had DateTime objects).

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I think Unix Timestamp is the way to go.

My two languages are Java (which can easily convert to/from Epoch) and Javascript (ditto).

[momentsmusicaux]

The downside with unix timestamp is that it's a PITA for humans to read.

I have lost count of the number of times I've had to type FROM_UNIX() or whatever the SQL function is to make my database queries produce something I can actually understand when debugging.

[andrewducker]

True.

But on the other hand, I'm converting it into a JS Date at the point where it's being read into the UI. So I'm never actually having to deal with a timestamp by eye - I'm either seeing it in the Java debugger as a DateTime object, or in the JS debugger as a Date object.

If I was writing it for something other people would use from different front ends then yeah, readability would definitely be a factor.

[andrewducker]

Ok, you talked me into it. It was a two line change to move it over to the readable version, and the JS side still works perfectly. So I've done that :->