Incorrect format timespan

Question

Hi

I am currently tryibng to convert a given time(Entered via a text box) , The time entered would look a little like 01 52 22 mins secs mili secs.

however Timespan.parse(tbName.text) gives me an incorrect format error.

I have got it to work if i input something like 46 in to the textbox but then it sets the days to 46 not the seconds.

Any ideas how to get it just to set the mins seconds and mili seconds from the text input stated above?

I am pretty sure timespan is the way to go but many posts i have read use the dateTime and only use the time part of the variable via formatting

Answer 1

Wonderful docs on MDSN, did you bother looking there first?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/se73z7b9.aspx

Answer 2

The specification for the string to be parsed is

[ws][-]{ d | [d.]hh:mm[:ss[.ff]] }[ws]

where ws is whitespace, d is days from 0 to 10675199 and the meaning of the rest is obvious (if you don't know how to read such a specification, items in square brackets are optional, and one item must be chosen from the items inside curly braces¹). Thus, if you want to parse "01 52 22" as a TimeSpan with TimeSpan.Minutes == 1, TimeSpan.Seconds == 52 and TimeSpan.Milliseconds == 22 then you either need to reformat your input to "00:01:52.22" and parse

string s = "00:01:52.22"; TimeSpan t = TimeSpan.Parse(s);

or parse the string yourself like so

string s = "01 52 22";
string[] fields = s.Split(' ');
int minutes = Int32.Parse(fields[0]);
int seconds = Int32.Parse(fields[1]);
int milliseconds = Int32.Parse(fields[2]);
TimeSpan t = new TimeSpan(0, 0, minutes, seconds, millseconds);

I have got it to work if i input something like 46 in to the textbox but then it sets the days to 46 not the seconds.

Thus, referring to the specification above, the reason that "46" parses as a TimeSpan with TimeSpan.Days == 46 is because looking at the specification again

[ws][-]{ d | [d.]hh:mm[:ss[.ff]] }[ws]

there is no whitespace, no -, no trailing whitespace and we reduce to looking at

d

or

[d.]hh:mm[:ss[.ff]]

and "46" clearly fits the former specification and thus parses as you've seen.

¹: Do yourself a favor and learn regular expressions; while the above is not a regular expression, understanding them will help you read specifications like the above. I recommend Mastering Regular Expressions. Understanding formal grammars helps too.