Timespan formatting

Question

How do you elegantly format a timespan to say example "1 hour 10 minutes" when you have declared it as :

TimeSpan t = new TimeSpan(0, 70, 0);

?

I am of course aware that you could do some simple maths for this, but I was kinda hoping that there is something in .NET to handle this for me - for more complicated scenarios

Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/574881/how-can-i-string-format-a-timespan-object-with-a-custom-format-in-net

Answer 1

There is no built-in functionality for this, you'll need to use a custom method, something like:

TimeSpan ts = new TimeSpan(0, 70, 0);
String.Format("{0} hour{1} {2} minute{3}", 
              ts.Hours, 
              ts.Hours == 1 ? "" : "s",
              ts.Minutes, 
              ts.Minutes == 1 ? "" : "s")

Answer 2

public static string GetDurationInWords( TimeSpan aTimeSpan )
{
    string timeTaken = string.Empty;

    if( aTimeSpan.Days > 0 )
        timeTaken += aTimeSpan.Days + " day" + ( aTimeSpan.Days > 1 ? "s" : "" );

    if( aTimeSpan.Hours > 0 )
    {
        if( !string.IsNullOrEmpty( timeTaken ) )
           timeTaken += " ";
        timeTaken += aTimeSpan.Hours + " hour" + ( aTimeSpan.Hours > 1 ? "s" : "" );
    }

    if( aTimeSpan.Minutes > 0 )
    {
       if( !string.IsNullOrEmpty( timeTaken ) )
           timeTaken += " ";
       timeTaken += aTimeSpan.Minutes + " minute" + ( aTimeSpan.Minutes > 1 ? "s" : "" );
    }

    if( aTimeSpan.Seconds > 0 )
    {
       if( !string.IsNullOrEmpty( timeTaken ) )
           timeTaken += " ";
       timeTaken += aTimeSpan.Seconds + " second" + ( aTimeSpan.Seconds > 1 ? "s" : "" );
    }

    if( string.IsNullOrEmpty( timeTaken ) )
        timeTaken = "0 seconds.";

     return timeTaken;
}

Answer 3

I like the answer John is working on. Here's what I came up with.

Convert.ToDateTime(t.ToString()).ToString("h \"Hour(s)\" m \"Minute(s)\" s \"Second(s)\"");

Doesn't account for days so you'd need to add that if you want it.

Answer 4

public static string Pluralize(int n, string unit)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(unit)) return string.Empty;

    n = Math.Abs(n); // -1 should be singular, too

    return unit + (n == 1 ? string.Empty : "s");
}

public static string TimeSpanInWords(TimeSpan aTimeSpan)
{
    List<string> timeStrings = new List<string>();

    int[] timeParts = new[] { aTimeSpan.Days, aTimeSpan.Hours, aTimeSpan.Minutes, aTimeSpan.Seconds };
    string[] timeUnits = new[] { "day", "hour", "minute", "second" };

    for (int i = 0; i < timeParts.Length; i++)
    {
        if (timeParts[i] > 0)
        {
            timeStrings.Add(string.Format("{0} {1}", timeParts[i], Pluralize(timeParts[i], timeUnits[i])));
        }
    }

    return timeStrings.Count != 0 ? string.Join(", ", timeStrings.ToArray()) : "0 seconds";
}