tags:

views:

51

answers:

1
+1  Q: 

How to handle time difference in ASP.Net (MVC)?

Hey!

I've published a web application to a server in the USA. The app is actually for swedes (people in Sweden) and I am looking for the best way to hadle the time difference.

There's a +7 hour difference.

Should I store the DateTime.Now in DB as it is, or should I use DateDiff to change the time before creating each record?

What's the best practice here? What to store in the database? Should the date only be differed when presenting it?

Best practices, please!

+6  A: 

Hi,

I usualy store the DateTime.UtcNow which is the utc time. So when it's 13.00 in UTC, it's 14.00 in Sweden and 7.00 in the USA, you store the UTC time (13.00) and you can always format the datetime with a New CultureInfo("sv-SE") to the local time in Sweden, the USA etc.

Michel

Michel  2010-01-23 19:37:58
+1. Also, you might want to put "UTC" somewhere in the database field so that it's clear what kind of time that is stored. Another neat thing about UTC time is that it's linear across daylight savings time changes.
Guffa  2010-01-23 19:42:54
Ok, great! But when printing the date and time, I must do the Date.AddHour(1) or is there any better way?
Mickel  2010-01-23 19:54:22
Read above carefully: "and you can always format the datetime with a New CultureInfo("sv-SE") to the local time in Sweden"
dario-g  2010-01-23 20:24:59
Yep, if variable dt is the UTC datetime, you get the Sweden datetime with this: DateTime swedenDateTime = Convert.ToDateTime(dt, new CultureInfo("sv-SE"));
Michel  2010-01-23 20:58:46
Oh, thanks for explaining Michel! :)
Mickel  2010-01-23 21:40:47

related questions

Handling and storing elapsed time
How do I convert local time to UTC in Python?
Mono's DateTime Serialization
Best practices for DateTime serialization in .Net framework 3.5/SQL Server 2008
Parsing exact dates in C# shouldn't force you to create an IFormatProvider
C# Casting vs. Parse
.NET Date Const (with Globalization)
Dynamic regex for date time formats
What is the simplest way to find the difference between 2 times in python?
Best way to convert DateTime to "n Hours Ago" in SQL
What's a good way to overwrite DateTime.Now during testing?
Datetime arithmetic with a string in Ruby
How can I get the DateTime for the Start of the Week?
Is DateTime.Now the best way to measure a function's performance?
SQL Server DateTime conversion failure
Natural language date/time parser for .NET?
What's a good way to check if two datetimes are on the same calendar day in TSQL?
Why does this python date/time conversion seem wrong?
Dealing with PHP server and MySQL server in different time zones
How do I parse and convert DateTime's to the RFC 3339 date-time format?
HOWTO - Compare a date string to datetime in SQL Server?
Best method for varchar date validation in Sybase (T-SQL)?
What's the BEST way to remove the time portion of a datetime value (SQL Server)
How do I calculate relative time?
How do I calculate someone's age in C#?