ansaurus

Question

Answer 1

+7 A:

Just use the subtraction operator, and use the Duration method to get the absolute value

DateTime dt1 = ...;
DateTime dt2 = ...;

TimeSpan diff = (dt2 - dt1).Duration();

if (diff.TotalMinutes < 5)
{
    // do something
}

Thomas Levesque 2010-01-20 14:46:05

Math.Abs(diff.TotalMinutes) would fix the dt1>dt2 problem...

JonB 2010-01-20 15:43:03

yes, good point... fixed

Thomas Levesque 2010-01-20 16:10:08

instead of using Math.Abs, you can also use .Duration() on a timespan like `TimeSpan diff = (dt2 - dt1).Duration();`

Pierre-Alain Vigeant 2010-01-20 16:12:37

I didn't know that method, thanks for the tip... fixed again ;)

Thomas Levesque 2010-01-20 18:01:43

Answer 2

+1 A:

Here is one way of doing it:

 TimeSpan span = firstDate - secondDate;
 return span.TotalMinutes < 5;

Oded 2010-01-20 14:46:38

This test will return true for "1 hour and 3 minutes"... you have to use TotalMinutes, not Minutes

Thomas Levesque 2010-01-20 14:47:32

Thanks for that, fixed

Oded 2010-01-20 14:48:45

@Thomas - yes, I overlooked that portion. Thanks for the correction.

Joel Etherton 2010-01-20 14:57:59

Answer 3

A:

Almost identical to @Thomas, but another method -

Assuming that dt1 is greater than dt2

if(dt1.Sutract(dt2).TotalMinutes < 5)
{
    // do
}

The primary difference is that it uses the dt1 memory space to perform the subtraction.

Edit: To use the TotalMinutes correction. The substract method is still present in the datetime object though so I'll leave it here.

Joel Etherton 2010-01-20 14:53:25

Yah, I wasn't even thinking about that for some reason (it was painfully obvious as soon as you commented on your own answer).

Joel Etherton 2010-01-20 15:01:07

Calculating the difference between 2 times, and then compare the difference to see if it is less than 5 minutes.