How can I convert seconds into (Hour:Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds) time?

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How can I convert seconds into (Hour:Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds) time?

Let's say I have 80 seconds; are there any specialized classes/techniques in .NET that would allow me to convert those 80 seconds into (00h:00m:00s:00ms) format like Convert.ToDateTime or something?

13 Answers

For .Net <= 4.0 Use the TimeSpan class.

TimeSpan t = TimeSpan.FromSeconds( secs );

string answer = string.Format("{0:D2}h:{1:D2}m:{2:D2}s:{3:D3}ms", 
                t.Hours, 
                t.Minutes, 
                t.Seconds, 
                t.Milliseconds);

(As noted by Inder Kumar Rathore) For .NET > 4.0 you can use

TimeSpan time = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(seconds);

//here backslash is must to tell that colon is
//not the part of format, it just a character that we want in output
string str = time .ToString(@"hh\:mm\:ss\:fff");

(From Nick Molyneux) Ensure that seconds is less than TimeSpan.MaxValue.TotalSeconds to avoid an exception.

If you know you have a number of seconds, you can create a TimeSpan value by calling TimeSpan.FromSeconds:

 TimeSpan ts = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(80);

You can then obtain the number of days, hours, minutes, or seconds. Or use one of the ToString overloads to output it in whatever manner you like.

The TimeSpan constructor allows you to pass in seconds. Simply declare a variable of type TimeSpan amount of seconds. Ex:

TimeSpan span = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 500);
span.ToString();

In VB.NET, but it's the same in C#:

Dim x As New TimeSpan(0, 0, 80)
debug.print(x.ToString())
' Will print 00:01:20

I'd suggest you use the TimeSpan class for this.

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    TimeSpan t = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(80);
    Console.WriteLine(t.ToString());

    t = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(868693412);
    Console.WriteLine(t.ToString());
}

Outputs:

00:01:20
10054.07:43:32

For .NET < 4.0 (e.x: Unity) you can write an extension method to have the TimeSpan.ToString(string format) behavior like .NET > 4.0

public static class TimeSpanExtensions
{
    public static string ToString(this TimeSpan time, string format)
    {
        DateTime dateTime = DateTime.Today.Add(time);
        return dateTime.ToString(format);
    }
}

And from anywhere in your code you can use it like:

var time = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeElapsed);

string formattedDate = time.ToString("hh:mm:ss:fff");

This way you can format any TimeSpanobject by simply calling ToString from anywhere of your code.

to get total seconds

var i = TimeSpan.FromTicks(startDate.Ticks).TotalSeconds;

and to get datetime from seconds

var thatDateTime = new DateTime().AddSeconds(i)

This will return in hh:mm:ss format

 public static string ConvertTime(long secs)
    {
        TimeSpan ts = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(secs);
        string displayTime = $"{ts.Hours}:{ts.Minutes}:{ts.Seconds}";
        return displayTime;
    }
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