c# - Why can I not deserialize this custom struct using Json.Net?

Question

I have a struct representing a DateTime which also has zone info as below:

public struct DateTimeWithZone
{
    private readonly DateTime _utcDateTime;
    private readonly TimeZoneInfo _timeZone;    
    public DateTimeWithZone(DateTime dateTime, TimeZoneInfo timeZone, 
                        DateTimeKind kind = DateTimeKind.Utc)
    {
        dateTime = DateTime.SpecifyKind(dateTime, kind);        
        _utcDateTime = dateTime.Kind != DateTimeKind.Utc 
                      ? TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(dateTime, timeZone) 
                      : dateTime;
        _timeZone = timeZone;
    }    
    public DateTime UniversalTime { get { return _utcDateTime; } }
    public TimeZoneInfo TimeZone { get { return _timeZone; } }
    public DateTime LocalTime 
    { 
        get 
        { 
            return TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(_utcDateTime, _timeZone); 
        } 
    }
}

I can serialize the object using:

var now = DateTime.Now;
var dateTimeWithZone = new DateTimeWithZone(now, TimeZoneInfo.Local, DateTimeKind.Local);
var serializedDateTimeWithZone = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(dateTimeWithZone);

But when I deserialize it using the below, I get an invalid DateTime value (DateTime.MinValue)

var deserializedDateTimeWithZone = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DateTimeWithZone>(serializedDateTimeWithZone);

Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Just declare the constructor as follows, that's all

[JsonConstructor]
public DateTimeWithZone(DateTime universalTime, TimeZoneInfo timeZone,
                    DateTimeKind kind = DateTimeKind.Utc)
{
    universalTime = DateTime.SpecifyKind(universalTime, kind);
    _utcDateTime = universalTime.Kind != DateTimeKind.Utc
                    ? TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(universalTime, timeZone)
                    : universalTime;
    _timeZone = timeZone;
}

Note: I only added JsonConstructor attribute and changed the parameter name as universalTime