Entity Framework DateTime and UTC

Is it possible to have Entity Framework (I am using the Code First Approach with CTP5 currently) store all DateTime values as UTC in the database?

Or is there maybe a way to specify it in the mapping, for example in this one for the last_login column:

modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Property(x => x.Id).HasColumnName("id");
modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Property(x => x.IsAdmin).HasColumnName("admin");
modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Property(x => x.IsEnabled).HasColumnName("enabled");
modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Property(x => x.PasswordHash).HasColumnName("password_hash");
modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Property(x => x.LastLogin).HasColumnName("last_login");

Solution 1:

Here is one approach you might consider:

First, define this following attribute:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property)]
public class DateTimeKindAttribute : Attribute
{
    private readonly DateTimeKind _kind;

    public DateTimeKindAttribute(DateTimeKind kind)
    {
        _kind = kind;
    }

    public DateTimeKind Kind
    {
        get { return _kind; }
    }

    public static void Apply(object entity)
    {
        if (entity == null)
            return;

        var properties = entity.GetType().GetProperties()
            .Where(x => x.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime) || x.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime?));

        foreach (var property in properties)
        {
            var attr = property.GetCustomAttribute<DateTimeKindAttribute>();
            if (attr == null)
                continue;

            var dt = property.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime?)
                ? (DateTime?) property.GetValue(entity)
                : (DateTime) property.GetValue(entity);

            if (dt == null)
                continue;

            property.SetValue(entity, DateTime.SpecifyKind(dt.Value, attr.Kind));
        }
    }
}

Now hook that attribute up to your EF context:

public class MyContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Foo> Foos { get; set; }

    public MyContext()
    {
        ((IObjectContextAdapter)this).ObjectContext.ObjectMaterialized +=
            (sender, e) => DateTimeKindAttribute.Apply(e.Entity);
    }
}

Now on any DateTime or DateTime? properties, you can apply this attribute:

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

    [DateTimeKind(DateTimeKind.Utc)]
    public DateTime Bar { get; set; }
}

With this in place, whenever Entity Framework loads an entity from the database, it will set the DateTimeKind that you specify, such as UTC.

Note that this doesn't do anything when saving. You'll still have to have the value properly converted to UTC before you try to save it. But it does allow you to set the kind when retrieving, which allows it to be serialized as UTC, or converted to other time zones with TimeZoneInfo.

Solution 2:

For EF Core, there is a great discussion on this topic on GitHub: https://github.com/dotnet/efcore/issues/4711

A solution (credit to Christopher Haws) that will result in treating all dates when storing them to/retrieving them from database as UTC is to add the following to the OnModelCreating method of your DbContext class:

var dateTimeConverter = new ValueConverter<DateTime, DateTime>(
    v => v.ToUniversalTime(),
    v => DateTime.SpecifyKind(v, DateTimeKind.Utc));

var nullableDateTimeConverter = new ValueConverter<DateTime?, DateTime?>(
    v => v.HasValue ? v.Value.ToUniversalTime() : v,
    v => v.HasValue ? DateTime.SpecifyKind(v.Value, DateTimeKind.Utc) : v);

foreach (var entityType in builder.Model.GetEntityTypes())
{
    if (entityType.IsKeyless)
    {
        continue;
    }

    foreach (var property in entityType.GetProperties())
    {
        if (property.ClrType == typeof(DateTime))
        {
            property.SetValueConverter(dateTimeConverter);
        }
        else if (property.ClrType == typeof(DateTime?))
        {
            property.SetValueConverter(nullableDateTimeConverter);
        }
    }
}

Also, check this link if you want to exclude some properties of some entities from being treated as UTC.

Solution 3:

I really like Matt Johnson's approach, but in my model ALL of my DateTime members are UTC and I don't want to have to decorate all of them with an attribute. So I generalized Matt's approach to allow the event handler to apply a default Kind value unless a member is explicitly decorated with the attribute.

The constructor for the ApplicationDbContext class includes this code:

/// <summary> Constructor: Initializes a new ApplicationDbContext instance. </summary>
public ApplicationDbContext()
        : base(MyApp.ConnectionString, throwIfV1Schema: false)
{
    // Set the Kind property on DateTime variables retrieved from the database
    ((IObjectContextAdapter)this).ObjectContext.ObjectMaterialized +=
      (sender, e) => DateTimeKindAttribute.Apply(e.Entity, DateTimeKind.Utc);
}

DateTimeKindAttribute looks like this:

/// <summary> Sets the DateTime.Kind value on DateTime and DateTime? members retrieved by Entity Framework. Sets Kind to DateTimeKind.Utc by default. </summary>
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property)]
public class DateTimeKindAttribute : Attribute
{
    /// <summary> The DateTime.Kind value to set into the returned value. </summary>
    public readonly DateTimeKind Kind;

    /// <summary> Specifies the DateTime.Kind value to set on the returned DateTime value. </summary>
    /// <param name="kind"> The DateTime.Kind value to set on the returned DateTime value. </param>
    public DateTimeKindAttribute(DateTimeKind kind)
    {
        Kind = kind;
    }

    /// <summary> Event handler to connect to the ObjectContext.ObjectMaterialized event. </summary>
    /// <param name="entity"> The entity (POCO class) being materialized. </param>
    /// <param name="defaultKind"> [Optional] The Kind property to set on all DateTime objects by default. </param>
    public static void Apply(object entity, DateTimeKind? defaultKind = null)
    {
        if (entity == null) return;

        // Get the PropertyInfos for all of the DateTime and DateTime? properties on the entity
        var properties = entity.GetType().GetProperties()
            .Where(x => x.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime) || x.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime?));

        // For each DateTime or DateTime? property on the entity...
        foreach (var propInfo in properties) {
            // Initialization
            var kind = defaultKind;

            // Get the kind value from the [DateTimekind] attribute if it's present
            var kindAttr = propInfo.GetCustomAttribute<DateTimeKindAttribute>();
            if (kindAttr != null) kind = kindAttr.Kind;

            // Set the Kind property
            if (kind != null) {
                var dt = (propInfo.PropertyType == typeof(DateTime?))
                    ? (DateTime?)propInfo.GetValue(entity)
                    : (DateTime)propInfo.GetValue(entity);

                if (dt != null) propInfo.SetValue(entity, DateTime.SpecifyKind(dt.Value, kind.Value));
            }
        }
    }
}