TimeSpan.Parse time format hhmmss

Question

in c# i have time in format hhmmss like 124510 for 12:45:10 and i need to know the the TotalSeconds. i used the TimeSpan.Parse("12:45:10").ToTalSeconds but it does'nt take the format hhmmss. Any nice way to convert this?

Jiva

Answer 1

This might help

using System;
using System.Globalization;

namespace ConsoleApplication7
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact("124510", "hhmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

            Console.WriteLine("Total Seconds: " + d.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds);

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Note this will not handle 24HR times, to parse times in 24HR format you should use the pattern HHmmss.

Infeasible

That 24HR Time comment probably just saved me about a day of banging my head on a wall. Thanks! – Conglutinate

Answer 2

Parse the string to a DateTime value, then subtract it's Date value to get the time as a TimeSpan:

DateTime t = DateTime.ParseExact("124510", "HHmmss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
TimeSpan time = t - t.Date;

Shanika

DateTime.TimeOfDay gives you a TimeSpan straight off. – Curtin

You should use TimeOfDay instead of t - t.Date – Tesstessa

Wow, thanks. I've been using the above method all over my code, and even had a ToTime extension method at one stage. Facepalm! – Belkisbelknap

Answer 3

You have to decide the receiving time format and convert it to any consistent format.

Then, you can use following code:

Format: hh:mm:ss (12 Hours Format)

DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact("10:45:10", "hh:mm:ss", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
double totalSeconds = dt.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds;    // Output: 38170.0

Format: HH:mm:ss (24 Hours Format)

DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact("22:45:10", "HH:mm:ss", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
double totalSeconds = dt.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds;    // Output: 81910.0

In case of format mismatch, FormatException will be thrown with message: "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."

Copt

Answer 4

You need to escape the colons (or other separators), for what reason it can't handle them, I don't know. See Custom TimeSpan Format Strings on MSDN, and the accepted answer, from Jon, to Why does TimeSpan.ParseExact not work.

Belkisbelknap

Answer 5

In case you want to work with also milliseconds like this format "01:02:10.055" then you may do as following;

public static double ParseTheTime(string givenTime)
{
var time = DateTime.ParseExact(givenTime, "hh:mm:ss.fff", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
return time.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds;
}

This code will give you corresponding seconds. Note that you may increase the number of 'f's if you want to adjust precision points.

Arluene

Answer 6

If you can guarantee that the string will always be hhmmss, you could do something like:

TimeSpan.Parse(
    timeString.SubString(0, 2) + ":" + 
    timeString.Substring(2, 2) + ":" + 
    timeString.Substring(4, 2)))

Tesstessa

i cant garantee that the string will always be hhmmss. I need to put the format in a .settings file – Jiva