.Net Maui date xml Deserialize failing in Android but working in Windows

Question

I have a .Net Maui Hybrid project that calls an API that returns XML. The API returns the xml and I Deserialize to an object using code below:

var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<FullQuoteResponseModel>));
var annuityIncomes = (List<FullQuoteResponseModel>)serializer.Deserialize(new StringReader(xml));

This works correctly when I run in Windows however when I deploy to Android the Deserialize fails with following error: String '28-05-2024' was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

The date in the xml looks like:

<expiry_date>28-04-2024</expiry_date>

In my object I have serialization attributes to handle as shown below this that work in Windows but fails in Android

[XmlIgnore]
public DateTime? ExpiryDate { get; set; }

[XmlElement("expiry_date", IsNullable = true)]
public string ExpiryDateString
{
  get
  {
    DateTime? expiryDate = this.ExpiryDate;
    ref DateTime? local = ref expiryDate;
    return !local.HasValue ? (string) null : local.GetValueOrDefault().ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");
  }
  set
  {
    this.ExpiryDate = value == null ? new DateTime?() : new DateTime?(DateTime.Parse(value));
  }
}

Why is this failing in Android but now windows?

Answer 1

I found the answer myself, Jason's comment about local led me to the answer. In Windows not setting the local didn't affect the Deserialization and dates with UK format dd-MM-yyyy still worked (not sure why).

However in Android Deserialization of UK formatted dates in the response resulted in the error below which I understand i.e. its an invalid date format for the default culture which was en-US

String '28-05-2024' was not recognized as a valid DateTime

To resolve this problem I changed the current culture to en-GB in the MainActivity.cs for the Android platform as below:

private void SetLocale()
{
    CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo("en-GB");
    CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = ci;
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ci;
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ci;
}

Desirialization now picked up the dates as the correct format. Hope this helps someone