how do I parse a date from json?

[jmeckley]

i'm finally getting serious about client side code. using jquery as my framework.

I have an ajax request returning json. all is great, except dates are strings (example [\/Date(1198904400000-0500)\/]), not dates. googling shows this is expected. what I haven't found is a way to parse the json string-date to a real date object.

how do I do this? surprisingly the jquery forum has not responded to my question? maybe because this isn't directly a jquery issue. ideally I would like to do this

var result = get_json_result();
var a_real_date_object = result.a_date.[COLOR=blue]to_date()[/color];
alert(a_real_date_object);

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[jmeckley]

ok, that was relatively painless

    String.prototype.to_date = function() {
        var date_as_string = this;
        while (date_as_string.indexOf("/") > -1) {
            date_as_string = date_as_string.replace("/", "");
        }
        return eval(date_as_string);
    };

and it's usage

var result = get_json_result();
var a_real_date_object = result.a_date.to_date();
alert(a_real_date_object);

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[jmeckley]

spoke too soon. I can get a date, but it's the current date an time, not the date/time of the string.

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[feherke]

Hi

I would send the date as Unix time, then use it as parameter for [tt]Date[/tt]'s constructor.

var a_real_date_object = new Date(result.a_unix_time*1000);

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[jmeckley]

the json serialization is done for me using the NetwonJson library and MonoRail. here is my final result

[COLOR=green]//assumes the string is in the format xxxxxx000000000000[anything]
//this is used for parsing json dates which have the format /Date(0000000000000-0000)/[/color]
String.prototype.to_date = function() {
    var date_as_integer = eval(this.substr(6, 13));
    return new Date(date_as_integer);
};

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.