How can I String.Format a TimeSpan object with a custom format in .NET?

Question

What is the recommended way of formatting TimeSpan objects into a string with a custom format?

Sosthena

Answer 1

Please note: this answer is for .Net 4.0 and above. If you want to format a TimeSpan in .Net 3.5 or below please see JohannesH's answer.

Custom TimeSpan format strings were introduced in .Net 4.0. You can find a full reference of available format specifiers at the MSDN Custom TimeSpan Format Strings page.

Here's an example timespan format string:

string.Format("{0:hh\\:mm\\:ss}", myTimeSpan); //example output 15:36:15

(UPDATE) and here is an example using C# 6 string interpolation:

$"{myTimeSpan:hh\\:mm\\:ss}"; //example output 15:36:15

You need to escape the ":" character with a "\" (which itself must be escaped unless you're using a verbatim string).

This excerpt from the MSDN Custom TimeSpan Format Strings page explains about escaping the ":" and "." characters in a format string:

The custom TimeSpan format specifiers do not include placeholder separator symbols, such as the symbols that separate days from hours, hours from minutes, or seconds from fractional seconds. Instead, these symbols must be included in the custom format string as string literals. For example, "dd.hh:mm" defines a period (.) as the separator between days and hours, and a colon (:) as the separator between hours and minutes.

Baryton

@Andrei Rinea: Correct, as stated at the start of my second paragraph ".Net 4 allows you to use custom format strings with Timespan". – Baryton

Yeah I saw that, just trying to point out to other people. I tried it in 3.5 hoping it's not a v4 only feature. – Anzac

Equivalent way, but more succinct: myTimeSpan.ToString("hh\\mm\\ss") (As noted above, works only in .Net 4.0 and above). – Hen

@Edward, that's not quite right. In your example you're escaping the first m and the first s, so with an input of myTimeSpan = new TimeSpan(15, 35, 54); the statement myTimeSpan .ToString("hh\\mm\\ss"); will result in 15m35s54. I don't think that's what you intended as it'll place an m after your hours and an s after your minutes. – Baryton

@Doctor Jones - Thank you! I meant myTimeSpan.ToString("h\\hm\\ms\\s"); or myTimeSpan.ToString(@"h\hm\ms\s"); which gives 15h35m54s – Hen

just be careful with this solution, because it will not work correctly when the Hours part is more than 24 – Slick

This solution is not quite right if your TimeSpan has day. @JohannesH solution works better – Calvillo

How can I include days in "hh" using C# 6 string interpolation? – Joanne

@QuarK, there is no custom format specifier that does that, they all give you the hours that are not counted as part of days. You could do this instead though $"{myTimeSpan.TotalHours}:{myTimeSpan:mm\\:ss}". From a user point of view, it might be better to output the days though, nobody wants to mentally figure out how many days are in 200+ hours. – Baryton

Answer 2

For .NET 3.5 and lower you could use:

string.Format ("{0:00}:{1:00}:{2:00}", 
               (int)myTimeSpan.TotalHours, 
                    myTimeSpan.Minutes, 
                    myTimeSpan.Seconds);

Code taken from a Jon Skeet answer on bytes

For .NET 4.0 and above, see DoctaJonez answer.

Emelineemelita

Yes, thank you. But I think that DateTime approach is more customizable, as it would work for any time format supported by DateTime. This approach is hard to use for showing AM/PM for example. – Sosthena

Sure, TimeSpan is meant to represents a period of time, not a time of day (Even though the DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay property would have you believe otherwise). If you need to represent a specific time of day I suggest you continue using the DateTime class. – Emelineemelita

Just remember that if the TimeSpan is equal to or more than 24 hours you will get incorrect formatting. – Emelineemelita

Answer 3

One way is to create a DateTime object and use it for formatting:

new DateTime(myTimeSpan.Ticks).ToString(myCustomFormat)

// or using String.Format:
String.Format("{0:HHmmss}", new DateTime(myTimeSpan.Ticks))

This is the way I know. I hope someone can suggest a better way.

Sosthena

This is really only going to work if the TimeSpan is less than a day. That might not be a such a terrible restriction, but it keeps it from being a general solution. – Forzando

Does it return correct value ? Dim ts As New TimeSpan(11, 22, 30, 30):Dim sss As String = New DateTime(ts.Ticks).ToString("dd.hh:mm:ss") – Ardithardme

Answer 4

Simple. Use TimeSpan.ToString with c, g or G. More information at MSDN

Octal

Thank you for your answer. This method is apparently new in .NET 4, and did not exist when the question was asked. It also does not support custom formats. Nevertheless, it's a valuable addition to the answers to this questions. Thanks again. – Sosthena

Answer 5

I would go with

myTimeSpan.ToString("hh\\:mm\\:ss");

Damp

Simple and clean! an alternative is @"hh\:mm\:ss" – Berryman

Escape characters did the trick ! Surprisingly... – Toilworn

Answer 6

Personally, I like this approach:

TimeSpan ts = ...;
string.Format("{0:%d}d {0:%h}h {0:%m}m {0:%s}s", ts);

You can make this as custom as you like with no problems:

string.Format("{0:%d}days {0:%h}hours {0:%m}min {0:%s}sec", ts);
string.Format("{0:%d}d {0:%h}h {0:%m}' {0:%s}''", ts);

Oram

Answer 7

Dim duration As New TimeSpan(1, 12, 23, 62)

DEBUG.WriteLine("Time of Travel: " + duration.ToString("dd\.hh\:mm\:ss"))

It works for Framework 4

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee372287.aspx

Wartow

Answer 8

This is awesome one:

string.Format("{0:00}:{1:00}:{2:00}",
               (int)myTimeSpan.TotalHours,
               myTimeSpan.Minutes,
               myTimeSpan.Seconds);

Arron

You need to cast the myTimeSpan.TotalHours to an int - otherwise it might get rounded-up. See JohannesH's answer – Recital

Answer 9

You can also go with:

Dim ts As New TimeSpan(35, 21, 59, 59)  '(11, 22, 30, 30)    '
Dim TimeStr1 As String = String.Format("{0:c}", ts)
Dim TimeStr2 As String = New Date(ts.Ticks).ToString("dd.HH:mm:ss")

EDIT:

You can also look at Strings.Format.

    Dim ts As New TimeSpan(23, 30, 59)
    Dim str As String = Strings.Format(New DateTime(ts.Ticks), "H:mm:ss")

Ardithardme

Answer 10

if (timeSpan.TotalDays < 1)
    return timeSpan.ToString(@"hh\:mm\:ss");

return timeSpan.TotalDays < 2
    ? timeSpan.ToString(@"d\ \d\a\y\ hh\:mm\:ss")
    : timeSpan.ToString(@"d\ \d\a\y\s\ hh\:mm\:ss");

All literal characters must be escaped.

Speiss

Answer 11

This is the approach I used my self with conditional formatting. and I post it here because I think this is clean way.

$"{time.Days:#0:;;\\}{time.Hours:#0:;;\\}{time.Minutes:00:}{time.Seconds:00}"

example of outputs:

00:00 (minimum)

1:43:04 (when we have hours)

15:03:01 (when hours are more than 1 digit)

2:4:22:04 (when we have days.)

The formatting is easy. time.Days:#0:;;\\ the format before ;; is for when value is positive. negative values are ignored. and for zero values we have;;\\ in order to hide it in formatted string. note that the escaped backslash is necessary otherwise it will not format correctly.

Welt

What language is :#0:;;\\ ? Where can I read about it? – Birdseed

Answer 12

Here is my extension method:

public static string ToFormattedString(this TimeSpan ts)
{
    const string separator = ", ";

    if (ts.TotalMilliseconds < 1) { return "No time"; }

    return string.Join(separator, new string[]
    {
        ts.Days > 0 ? ts.Days + (ts.Days > 1 ? " days" : " day") : null,
        ts.Hours > 0 ? ts.Hours + (ts.Hours > 1 ? " hours" : " hour") : null,
        ts.Minutes > 0 ? ts.Minutes + (ts.Minutes > 1 ? " minutes" : " minute") : null,
        ts.Seconds > 0 ? ts.Seconds + (ts.Seconds > 1 ? " seconds" : " second") : null,
        ts.Milliseconds > 0 ? ts.Milliseconds + (ts.Milliseconds > 1 ? " milliseconds" : " millisecond") : null,
    }.Where(t => t != null));
}

Example call:

string time = new TimeSpan(3, 14, 15, 0, 65).ToFormattedString();

Output:

3 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes, 65 milliseconds

Jaclynjaco

Answer 13

I used the code below. It is long, but still it is one expression, and produces very friendly output, as it does not outputs days, hours, minutes, or seconds if they have value of zero.

In the sample it produces output: "4 days 1 hour 3 seconds".

TimeSpan sp = new TimeSpan(4,1,0,3);
string.Format("{0}{1}{2}{3}", 
        sp.Days > 0 ? ( sp.Days > 1 ? sp.ToString(@"d\ \d\a\y\s\ "): sp.ToString(@"d\ \d\a\y\ ")):string.Empty,
        sp.Hours > 0 ? (sp.Hours > 1 ? sp.ToString(@"h\ \h\o\u\r\s\ ") : sp.ToString(@"h\ \h\o\u\r\ ")):string.Empty,
        sp.Minutes > 0 ? (sp.Minutes > 1 ? sp.ToString(@"m\ \m\i\n\u\t\e\s\ ") :sp.ToString(@"m\ \m\i\n\u\t\e\ ")):string.Empty,
        sp.Seconds > 0 ? (sp.Seconds > 1 ? sp.ToString(@"s\ \s\e\c\o\n\d\s"): sp.ToString(@"s\ \s\e\c\o\n\d\s")):string.Empty);

Baleful

Now there is a much better way to write this! Try to refactor all the common operations, and you can make this code look much, much better. – Sosthena

@Hosam Aly; I'm learning all the time, do you care to post your improved code? – Baleful

String timeComponent(int value, String name) { return value > 0 ? value + " " + name + (value > 1 ? "s" : ""); } Call that for each component (e.g. timeComponent(sp.Days, "day")), then use String.join to insert the spaces. – Sosthena

Answer 14

I use this method. I'm Belgian and speak dutch so plural of hours and minutes is not just adding 's' to the end but almost a different word than singular.

It may seem long but it is very readable I think:

 public static string SpanToReadableTime(TimeSpan span)
    {
        string[] values = new string[4];  //4 slots: days, hours, minutes, seconds
        StringBuilder readableTime = new StringBuilder();

        if (span.Days > 0)
        {
            if (span.Days == 1)
                values[0] = span.Days.ToString() + " dag"; //day
            else
                values[0] = span.Days.ToString() + " dagen";  //days

            readableTime.Append(values[0]);
            readableTime.Append(", ");
        }
        else
            values[0] = String.Empty;


        if (span.Hours > 0)
        {
            if (span.Hours == 1)
                values[1] = span.Hours.ToString() + " uur";  //hour
            else
                values[1] = span.Hours.ToString() + " uren";  //hours

            readableTime.Append(values[1]);
            readableTime.Append(", ");

        }
        else
            values[1] = string.Empty;

        if (span.Minutes > 0)
        {
            if (span.Minutes == 1)
                values[2] = span.Minutes.ToString() + " minuut";  //minute
            else
                values[2] = span.Minutes.ToString() + " minuten";  //minutes

            readableTime.Append(values[2]);
            readableTime.Append(", ");
        }
        else
            values[2] = string.Empty;

        if (span.Seconds > 0)
        {
            if (span.Seconds == 1)
                values[3] = span.Seconds.ToString() + " seconde";  //second
            else
                values[3] = span.Seconds.ToString() + " seconden";  //seconds

            readableTime.Append(values[3]);
        }
        else
            values[3] = string.Empty;


        return readableTime.ToString();
    }//end SpanToReadableTime

Griego

If you write software that needs to be translated, then this is pretty much the way to go. The standard TimeSpan.ToString() is just too clunky for normal end users to understand, especially when the span if over a day. – Kary

Answer 15

This is a pain in VS 2010, here's my workaround solution.

 public string DurationString
        {
            get 
            {
                if (this.Duration.TotalHours < 24)
                    return new DateTime(this.Duration.Ticks).ToString("HH:mm");
                else //If duration is more than 24 hours
                {
                    double totalminutes = this.Duration.TotalMinutes;
                    double hours = totalminutes / 60;
                    double minutes = this.Duration.TotalMinutes - (Math.Floor(hours) * 60);
                    string result = string.Format("{0}:{1}", Math.Floor(hours).ToString("00"), Math.Floor(minutes).ToString("00"));
                    return result;
                }
            } 
        }

Cake

Answer 16

The Substring method works perfectly when you only want the Hours:Minutes:Seconds. It's simple, clean code and easy to understand.

    var yourTimeSpan = DateTime.Now - DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-2);

    var formatted = yourTimeSpan.ToString().Substring(0,8);// 00:00:00 

    Console.WriteLine(formatted);

Robtrobust

Why not just .ToString(@"hh\:mm\:ss")? Isn't that simpler to understand? – Estonian

@Arad That does seem much easier! Wonder why I wrote this answer... – Robtrobust

Answer 17

No one has shown approach with decimal format specifier which is my favorite one, especially when used with string interpolation - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-numeric-format-strings?redirectedfrom=MSDN#decimal-format-specifier-d

For example:

$"{time.Hours:D2}:{time.Minutes:D2}:{time.Seconds:D2}.{time.Milliseconds:D3}"
// Sample output: 00:00:09.200

You can of course wrap it up in some helper method.

Retrocede

Answer 18

Here is my version. It shows only as much as necessary, handles pluralization, negatives, and I tried to make it lightweight.

Output Examples

0 seconds
1.404 seconds
1 hour, 14.4 seconds
14 hours, 57 minutes, 22.473 seconds
1 day, 14 hours, 57 minutes, 22.475 seconds

Code

public static class TimeSpanExtensions
{
    public static string ToReadableString(this TimeSpan timeSpan)
    {
        int days = (int)(timeSpan.Ticks / TimeSpan.TicksPerDay);
        long subDayTicks = timeSpan.Ticks % TimeSpan.TicksPerDay;

        bool isNegative = false;
        if (timeSpan.Ticks < 0L)
        {
            isNegative = true;
            days = -days;
            subDayTicks = -subDayTicks;
        }

        int hours = (int)((subDayTicks / TimeSpan.TicksPerHour) % 24L);
        int minutes = (int)((subDayTicks / TimeSpan.TicksPerMinute) % 60L);
        int seconds = (int)((subDayTicks / TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond) % 60L);
        int subSecondTicks = (int)(subDayTicks % TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond);
        double fractionalSeconds = (double)subSecondTicks / TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond;

        var parts = new List<string>(4);

        if (days > 0)
            parts.Add(string.Format("{0} day{1}", days, days == 1 ? null : "s"));
        if (hours > 0)
            parts.Add(string.Format("{0} hour{1}", hours, hours == 1 ? null : "s"));
        if (minutes > 0)
            parts.Add(string.Format("{0} minute{1}", minutes, minutes == 1 ? null : "s"));
        if (fractionalSeconds.Equals(0D))
        {
            switch (seconds)
            {
                case 0:
                    // Only write "0 seconds" if we haven't written anything at all.
                    if (parts.Count == 0)
                        parts.Add("0 seconds");
                    break;

                case 1:
                    parts.Add("1 second");
                    break;

                default:
                    parts.Add(seconds + " seconds");
                    break;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            parts.Add(string.Format("{0}{1:.###} seconds", seconds, fractionalSeconds));
        }

        string resultString = string.Join(", ", parts);
        return isNegative ? "(negative) " + resultString : resultString;
    }
}

Kwapong

Answer 19

If you want the duration format similar to youtube, given the number of seconds

int[] duration = { 0, 4, 40, 59, 60, 61, 400, 4000, 40000, 400000 };
foreach (int d in duration)
{
    Console.WriteLine("{0, 6} -> {1, 10}", d, d > 59 ? TimeSpan.FromSeconds(d).ToString().TrimStart("00:".ToCharArray()) : string.Format("0:{0:00}", d));
}

Output:

     0 ->       0:00
     4 ->       0:04
    40 ->       0:40
    59 ->       0:59
    60 ->       1:00
    61 ->       1:01
   400 ->       6:40
  4000 ->    1:06:40
 40000 ->   11:06:40
400000 -> 4.15:06:40

Zirconium

Answer 20

I wanted to return a string such as "1 day 2 hours 3 minutes" and also take into account if for example days or minuttes are 0 and then not showing them. thanks to John Rasch for his answer which mine is barely an extension of

TimeSpan timeLeft = New Timespan(0, 70, 0);
String.Format("{0}{1}{2}{3}{4}{5}",
    Math.Floor(timeLeft.TotalDays) == 0 ? "" : 
    Math.Floor(timeLeft.TotalDays).ToString() + " ",
    Math.Floor(timeLeft.TotalDays) == 0 ? "" : Math.Floor(timeLeft.TotalDays) == 1 ? "day " : "days ",
    timeLeft.Hours == 0 ? "" : timeLeft.Hours.ToString() + " ",
    timeLeft.Hours == 0 ? "" : timeLeft.Hours == 1 ? "hour " : "hours ",
    timeLeft.Minutes == 0 ? "" : timeLeft.Minutes.ToString() + " ",
    timeLeft.Minutes == 0 ? "" : timeLeft.Minutes == 1 ? "minute " : "minutes ");

Sinter