How do I convert a TimeSpan to a formatted string?

I just built a few TimeSpan Extension methods. Thought I could share:

public static string ToReadableAgeString(this TimeSpan span)
{
    return string.Format("{0:0}", span.Days / 365.25);
}

public static string ToReadableString(this TimeSpan span)
{
    string formatted = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}{3}",
        span.Duration().Days > 0 ? string.Format("{0:0} day{1}, ", span.Days, span.Days == 1 ? string.Empty : "s") : string.Empty,
        span.Duration().Hours > 0 ? string.Format("{0:0} hour{1}, ", span.Hours, span.Hours == 1 ? string.Empty : "s") : string.Empty,
        span.Duration().Minutes > 0 ? string.Format("{0:0} minute{1}, ", span.Minutes, span.Minutes == 1 ? string.Empty : "s") : string.Empty,
        span.Duration().Seconds > 0 ? string.Format("{0:0} second{1}", span.Seconds, span.Seconds == 1 ? string.Empty : "s") : string.Empty);

    if (formatted.EndsWith(", ")) formatted = formatted.Substring(0, formatted.Length - 2);

    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(formatted)) formatted = "0 seconds";

    return formatted;
}

Would TimeSpan.ToString() do the trick for you? If not, it looks like the code sample on that page describes how to do custom formatting of a TimeSpan object.

Use String.Format() with multiple parameters.

using System;

namespace TimeSpanFormat
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            TimeSpan dateDifference = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 6, 32, 445);
            string formattedTimeSpan = string.Format("{0:D2} hrs, {1:D2} mins, {2:D2} secs", dateDifference.Hours, dateDifference.Minutes, dateDifference.Seconds);
            Console.WriteLine(formattedTimeSpan);
        }
    }
}

The easiest way to format a TimeSpan is to add it to a DateTime and format that:

string formatted = (DateTime.Today + dateDifference).ToString("HH 'hrs' mm 'mins' ss 'secs'");

This works as long as the time difference is not more than 24 hours.

The Today property returns a DateTime value where the time component is zero, so the time component of the result is the TimeSpan value.

According to the Microsoft documentation, the TimeSpan structure exposes Hours, Minutes, Seconds, and Milliseconds as integer members. Maybe you want something like:

dateDifference.Hours.ToString() + " hrs, " + dateDifference.Minutes.ToString() + " mins, " + dateDifference.Seconds.ToString() + " secs"