In Skybrud.Essentials, the static JsonUtils class comes with a number of helpful utility methods and other functionality for working with JSON (and JSON.net in particular).
For instance, you can parse or load JSON objects using the JsonUtils.ParseJsonObject and JsonUtils.LoadJsonObject methods respectively:
@using Skybrud.Essentials.Json
@{
// Parse a JSON object from a string
JObject json1 = JsonUtils.Parse("{\"hello\":\"world\"}");
// Load a JSON object from a file on disk
JObject json2 = JsonUtils.Load("C:/path/to/file.json");
}The JsonUtils.Parse method does somewhat the same as JObject.Parse, but JSON.net's default settings will deserialize string properties that look like dates to actual instances of DateTime - which when serialized back to a JSON string might not look like the original string value. The JsonUtils.Parse will make sure that these values will stay as strings so the format wont change.
The JsonUtils.Load will read from the file so you don't have to do this your self. The contents of the file is then passed on to the JsonUtils.Parse method, giving the same result as described above.
Skybrud.Essentials also comes with a number of JSON converters. For instance, there are a number of ways to serialize an enum value. Default in JSON.net is to use the enum values numeric value, but this may not always be the desired result.
So, if you wish to store your enum values using camel case (eg. camelCase), you can use the EnumCamelCaseConverter on your property or enum class. In a similar way, you can convert to Pascal case (eg. PascalCase) using EnumPascalCaseConverter, and to lower case (eg. lowercase) using EnumLowerCaseConverter.
EssentialsDateTime is a class that both wraps and and extends the functionality of the DateTime struct in .NET, and as such can be used as a replacement for DateTime.
You can get an instance of EssentialsDateTime in a number of ways. Like DateTime, you can use the Now property to get the instance representing the current, local time:
EssentialsDateTime dt = EssentialsDateTime.Now;In a similar way, you can use EssentialsDateTime.UtcNow and EssentialsDateTime.Today.
While DateTime has some support for various popular date and time format, it requires some help doing so in order to work properly. EssentialsDateTime works well with unix time, ISO 8601, RFC 822 and RFC 2822 out of the box.
@using Skybrud.Essentials.Time
@{
// Write out the current unix timestamp
<pre>@EssentialsDateTime.CurrentUnixTimestamp</pre>
// Get the current date
EssentialsDateTime now = EssentialsDateTime.Now;
// Write out the unix timestamp of "now"
<pre>@now.UnixTimestamp</pre>
// Get the timestamp for the 1st of January 2018 at 00:00 (according to CET)
EssentialsDateTime januarFirst2018 = EssentialsDateTime.FromUnixTimestamp(1514761200);
// Convert the date to a string (should match "2018-01-01 00:00")
<pre>@januarFirst2018.ToLocalTime().ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm")</pre>
}@using Skybrud.Essentials.Time
@{
// Get the current date
EssentialsDateTime now = EssentialsDateTime.Now;
// Write out the ISO 8601 string representation of "now"
<pre>@now.ToIso8601</pre>
// Get the timestamp for the 1st of January 2018 at 00:00 (according to CET)
EssentialsDateTime januarFirst2018 = EssentialsDateTime.FromIso8601("2018-01-01T00:00:00+01:00");
// Convert the date to a string (should match "2018-01-01 00:00")
<pre>@januarFirst2018.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm")</pre>
}@using Skybrud.Essentials.Time
@{
// Get the current date
EssentialsDateTime now = EssentialsDateTime.Now;
// Write out the RFC 822 string representation of "now"
<pre>@now.ToRfc2822</pre>
// Get the timestamp for the 1st of January 2018 at 00:00 (according to CET)
EssentialsDateTime januarFirst2018 = EssentialsDateTime.FromRfc822("Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100");
// Convert the date to a string (should match "2018-01-01 00:00")
<pre>@januarFirst2018.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm")</pre>
}@using Skybrud.Essentials.Time
@{
// Get the current date
EssentialsDateTime now = EssentialsDateTime.Now;
// Write out the RFC 2822 string representation of "now"
<pre>@now.ToRfc2822</pre>
// Get the timestamp for the 1st of January 2018 at 00:00 (according to CET)
EssentialsDateTime januarFirst2018 = EssentialsDateTime.FromRfc2822("Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100");
// Convert the date to a string (should match "2018-01-01 00:00")
<pre>@januarFirst2018.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm")</pre>
}As you may already be using DateTime in your code, Skybrud.Essentials supports converting an instance of DateTime to EssentialsDateTime using operator overloading:
@using Skybrud.Essentials.Time
@{
// Get the current date
EssentialsDateTime now = DateTime.Now;
// Convert the date to a string
<pre>@now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm")</pre>
}