Format TimeSpan to mm:ss for positive and negative TimeSpans

Question

I'm looking for a solution in .net 3.5 I wrote the following working solution:

private string FormatTimeSpan(TimeSpan time)
{
    return String.Format("{0}{1:00}:{2:00}", time < TimeSpan.Zero ? "-" : "", Math.Abs(time.Minutes), Math.Abs(time.Seconds));
}

But my Question is: Is there a better way? Maybe something shorter where I do not need an helper function.

Rigatoni

Answer 1

Somewhat shorter, using Custom TimeSpan Format Strings:

private string FormatTimeSpan(TimeSpan time)
{
    return ((time < TimeSpan.Zero) ? "-" : "") + time.ToString(@"mm\:ss");
}

Tyrant

Shouldn't the negative sign appear automatically from the time.ToString() ? – Vineyard

@Vineyard - It doesn't, not with a custom format string. And there is no custom format specifier for it. – Tyrant

I'm nur sure but does time.ToString(@"mm\:ss") work for .net 3.5? – Rigatoni

Just got the idea to implement it as Extension that will make the functionality available all over my program. – Rigatoni

@Tarion: @"mm\:ss" doesn't work for me either. Returns always "00:00". Someone a clue? – Ululant

Answer 2

for below .Net 4.0

You can use:

get { return Time.ToString().Substring(3); }

Rf

I think this is a smart hack. – Widener

I'd recommend against this approach, as it relies on the default ToSring behavior, which is Culture dependent. – Honky