Convert milliseconds to human readable time lapse

Question

I would like to format some commands execution times in a human readable format, for example:

3 -> 3ms
1100 -> 1s 100ms
62000 -> 1m 2s
etc ..

Taking into account days, hours, minutes, seconds, ...

Is it possible using C#?

Answer 1

public static string ReadableTime(int milliseconds)
{
    var parts = new List<string>();
    Action<int, string> add = (val, unit) => { if (val > 0) parts.Add(val+unit); };
    var t = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(milliseconds);

    add(t.Days, "d");
    add(t.Hours, "h");
    add(t.Minutes, "m");
    add(t.Seconds, "s");
    add(t.Milliseconds, "ms");

    return string.Join(" ", parts);
}

Answer 2

This probably has a slightly different output than requested, but the result is human readable - and it can be adapted to fit many other use cases.

private static List<double> _intervals = new List<double>
{
    1.0 / 1000 / 1000,
    1.0 / 1000,
    1,
    1000,
    60 * 1000,
    60 * 60 * 1000
};
private static List<string> _units = new List<string>
{
    "ns",
    "µs",
    "ms",
    "s",
    "min",
    "h"
};

public string FormatUnits(double milliseconds, string format = "#.#")
{
    var interval = _intervals.Last(i=>i<=milliseconds);
    var index = _intervals.IndexOf(interval);

    return string.Concat((milliseconds / interval).ToString(format) , " " , _units[index]);
}

Example calls...

Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(1));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(20));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(300));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(4000));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(50000));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(600000));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(7000000));
Console.WriteLine(FormatUnits(80000000));

...and results:

1000 µs
20 ms
300 ms
4 s
50 s
10 min
1.9 h
22.2 h

Answer 3

Maybe something like this?

DateTime.Now.ToString("%d 'd' %h 'h' %m 'm' %s 'seconds' %ms 'ms'")

Answer 4

I know this is old, but I wanted to answer with a great nuget package.

Install-Package Humanizer

https://www.nuget.org/packages/Humanizer

https://github.com/MehdiK/Humanizer

Example from their readme.md

TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(1299630020).Humanize(4) => "2 weeks, 1 day, 1 hour, 30 seconds"

Answer 5

You could utilize the static TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds method as well as the resulting TimeSpan's Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds and Milliseconds properties.

But I'm busy right now, so I'll leave the rest to you as an exercise.

Answer 6

.NET 4 accepts format in TimeSpan.Tostring().

For other you can implement extension method like

    public static string Format(this TimeSpan obj)
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        if (obj.Hours != 0)
        {
            sb.Append(obj.Hours);
            sb.Append(" "); 
            sb.Append("hours");
            sb.Append(" ");
        }
        if (obj.Minutes != 0 || sb.Length != 0)
        {
            sb.Append(obj.Minutes);
            sb.Append(" "); 
            sb.Append("minutes");
            sb.Append(" ");
        }
        if (obj.Seconds != 0 || sb.Length != 0)
        {
            sb.Append(obj.Seconds);
            sb.Append(" "); 
            sb.Append("seconds");
            sb.Append(" ");
        }
        if (obj.Milliseconds != 0 || sb.Length != 0)
        {
            sb.Append(obj.Milliseconds);
            sb.Append(" "); 
            sb.Append("Milliseconds");
            sb.Append(" ");
        }
        if (sb.Length == 0)
        {
            sb.Append(0);
            sb.Append(" "); 
            sb.Append("Milliseconds");
        }
        return sb.ToString();
    }

and call as

foreach (TimeSpan span in spans)
{
    MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0}",  span.Format()));
}