Alternatives to using DateTime (NativeDateTime?)

So I just found out to my surprise that System.DateTime is not blitable because it contains two private const strings.

I was wondering if anyone has come across any good alternatives that actually are blitable or if anyone has written their own alternative? I would hope to eventually see a NativeDateTime type introduced.

 

const

is not part of the data, like

static

.

DateTime

is just an

UInt64

.
what makes it not blittable is the

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Auto)]

attribute, telling the compiler that it can rearrange the field order.

next question is why is a struct with a single primitive field marked as

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Auto)]

?

btw you can make your own DateTime wrapper like we did with bool (wrapping the ticks and converting to DateTime via property / implicit conversions), until DT becomes blittable

 

thats really interesting! i'm not really sure with where to start with writing a DateTime wrapper since some of these concepts are quite new to me. could you please share some code on what that might look like or a link to where I could learn more?

 

it can be as simple as

Code (CSharp):

1. struct DTWrapper {
2. ulong ticks;
3. public DTWrapper(DateTime dt) => ticks = dt.Ticks;
4. public DateTime Value => new DateTime(ticks);
5. }

then you can add implicit conversions, operator overloads (mirroring the original ones) etc...

you can look at https://referencesource.microsoft.com/#mscorlib/system/datetime.cs for reference

 

this is brilliant thanks so much!