C# in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

TimeSpan

Synopsis

This class encapsulates a positive or negative interval of time that can be used for arithmetic operations and greater-than or less-than comparisons. Internally, the TimeSpan is stored as a number of ticks, each of which is equal to 100 nanoseconds. You can convert a string into a TimeSpan using the static Parse( ) method.

You can evaluate a time span in terms of days, hours, seconds, and so on, by using the appropriate Total property. The corresponding properties that are not preceded with the word Total return only one component of the time span. (For example, the TotalHours property returns 1.5 for a time span of an hour and a half, while Hours returns 1 for a time span of one hour.)

The TimeSpan static methods prefixed with From are useful for quickly creating a time span for use as an argument for a method call, as in myApp.SetTimeSpan(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10)).

public struct TimeSpan : IComparable {
// Public Constructors
   public TimeSpan(int hours, int minutes, int seconds);
   public TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds);
   public TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds, int milliseconds);
   public TimeSpan(long ticks);
// Public Static Fields
   public static readonly TimeSpan MaxValue;          
// =10675199.02:48:05.4775807
   public static readonly TimeSpan MinValue;          
// =-10675199.02:48:05.4775808
   public const long TicksPerDay;        
// =864000000000
   public const long TicksPerHour;       
// =36000000000
   public const long TicksPerMillisecond;
// =10000 ...