Adding datatype explicitly

[tpluscode]

When a class is serialized DateTime values should include @type so that they can be interpreted correctly and not as xsd:string. This could be an opt-in feature.

public class Model
{
   public DateTime DateTime { get; set; }
}

should produce

{
   "dateTime": {
      "@value": "2016-03-21T00:00:00",
      "@type": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime"
   }
}

[asbjornu]

Isn't this a sensible default? I would expect the same behaviour for all primitive types that can be deduced from the .NET type system.

[tpluscode]

Maybe you're right. Maybe except bool and string, which are implicitly typed and unambiguous. Not so with numbers though, because Number in JS is used to represent decimals, floats and integers alike.

Would you explicitly serialize the @type of every an all primitive type? Or do you think it would be fine to make an exception for true/false and strings?

[asbjornu]

I agree; string and bool don't need @type. But as .NET has a richer set of types for numbers than JavaScript, I think differentiating between float, double, decimal and integer is both valuable and easy to do.