WCF WebApi IQueryable doesn't work with DateTime properties

Question

I'm unable to query any object by the DateTime properties.

public class MyModel
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public DateTime TimeStamp { get; set; }
}


[ServiceContract]
public class BuildJobApi
{
    [WebGet]
    public IQueryable<MyModel> GetMyModels()
    {
        return _service.GetMyModels(); // IQueryable<MyModel>
    }
}

I tried using WCF WebApi v0.5.0 and 0.6.0, both are throwing error messages.

Here's the URL generated (by WebApi) to query by Id (works):

/api/models?$filter=(Id eq 100)

Here's the URL generated to query by TimeStamp (doesn't work):

/api/models?$filter=TimeStamp ge DateTime'2012-02-22T00:00:00'

I can also query by date part (works):

/api/models?$filter=(year(ExceptionDateTime) eq 2012)

The exact error message is 500/Internal Server Error. With the message:

The server encountered an error processing the request. See server logs for more details.

Q: Is there anything that can be done to query the DateTime properties without querying each part separately?

Answer 1

Try to avoid serializing DateTime, use string for this.

eg:

public class MyModel
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string TimeStamp { get; set; }
}

new MyModel { Id = 123, TimeStamp = DateTime.Now.ToString("o") };

the "o" is for the ISO 8601 format (culture invariant, stable format).