A local time, which is a Coordinated Universal Time adjusted to the local time zone, is represented by a DateTime structure whose Kind property has the value Local. If a local DateTime object is serialized in one time zone by the ToBinary method and deserialized in a different time zone by the FromBinary method, the local time represented by the resulting DateTime object is automatically adjusted to the second time zone.

For example, consider a DateTime object that represents a local time of 3 P.M. An application executing in a western time zone uses the ToBinary method to convert that DateTime object to a binary value, then another application executing in a time zone three hours east of the original one uses the FromBinary method to convert the binary value to a new DateTime object. The value of the new DateTime object is 6 P.M., which represents the same point in time as the original 3 P.M. value, but is adjusted to local time in the eastern time zone.

Starting with the .NET Framework version 2.0, a DateTime structure consists of a private Kind field, which indicates whether the specified time value is based on local time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or neither, and a private Ticks field, which contains the number of 100-nanosecond ticks that specify a date and time. The Ticks field can be accessed with the Ticks property and the Kind field can be accessed with the Kind property.

Prior to the .NET Framework 2.0, if you serialized a DateTime object manually instead of using a serialization interface such as System.Runtime.Serialization..::.ISerializable, you only needed to serialize the Ticks data in the DateTime structure. Starting with version 2.0, you must also serialize the Kind data.