title: Parsing a JSON date info into a C# DateTime
body: <p>I have a a WCF service that returns a CLR object. This object is defined as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[DataContract]
  public class Person
  {
    [DataMember]
    public string FullName
    {
      get { return fullName; }
      set { id = fullName; }
    }
    private string fullName = string.Empty;
  
    [DataMember]
    public DateTime BirthDate
    {
      get { return birthDate; }
      set { birthDate = value; }
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Instances of this object are being created and returned from my WCF service. This service looks like the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[OperationContract]
  [WebGet(UriTemplate = "/GetPersonByID/{id}", ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  public Person GetPersonByID(string id)
  {
    Person person = FindPersonByID(id);
    return person;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I get the response back in my application, I can successfully extract the FullName value. However, I haven't successfully been able to convert the BirthDate to a C# DateTime object in my client application. When converted to a string, the BirthDate looks something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>\/Date(1297367252340-0500)\/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How do I get that into a C# DateTime instance?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>