Format A TimeSpan With Years

Question

I have a class with 2 date properties: FirstDay and LastDay. LastDay is nullable. I would like to generate a string in the format of "x year(s) y day(s)". If the total years are less than 1, I would like to omit the year section. If the total days are less than 1, I would like to omit the day section. If either years or days are 0, they should say "day/year", rather than "days/years" respectively.

Examples:
2.2 years:             "2 years 73 days"
1.002738 years:   "1 year 1 day"
0.2 years:             "73 days"
2 years:                "2 years"

What I have works, but it is long:

private const decimal DaysInAYear = 365.242M;

public string LengthInYearsAndDays
{
    get
    {
        var lastDay = this.LastDay ?? DateTime.Today;
        var lengthValue = lastDay - this.FirstDay;

        var builder = new StringBuilder();

        var totalDays = (decimal)lengthValue.TotalDays;
        var totalYears = totalDays / DaysInAYear;
        var years = (int)Math.Floor(totalYears);

        totalDays -= (years * DaysInAYear);
        var days = (int)Math.Floor(totalDays);

        Func<int, string> sIfPlural = value =>
            value > 1 ? "s" : string.Empty;

        if (years > 0)
        {
            builder.AppendFormat(
                CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                "{0} year{1}",
                years,
                sIfPlural(years));

            if (days > 0)
            {
                builder.Append(" ");
            }
        }

        if (days > 0)
        {
            builder.AppendFormat(
                CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                "{0} day{1}",
                days,
                sIfPlural(days));
        }

        var length = builder.ToString();
        return length;
    }
}

Is there a more concise way of doing this (but still readable)?

Answer 1

I think this should work:

public static int DiffYears(DateTime dateValue1, DateTime dateValue2)
{
    var intToCompare1 = Convert.ToInt32(dateValue1.ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
    var intToCompare2 = Convert.ToInt32(dateValue2.ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
    return (intToCompare2 - intToCompare1) / 10000;
}

Answer 2

public string GetAgeText(DateTime birthDate)
{
        const double ApproxDaysPerMonth = 30.4375;
        const double ApproxDaysPerYear = 365.25;

        /*
        The above are the average days per month/year over a normal 4 year period
        We use these approximations as they are more accurate for the next century or so
        After that you may want to switch over to these 400 year approximations

           ApproxDaysPerMonth = 30.436875
           ApproxDaysPerYear  = 365.2425 

          How to get theese numbers:
            The are 365 days in a year, unless it is a leepyear.
            Leepyear is every forth year if Year % 4 = 0
            unless year % 100 == 1
            unless if year % 400 == 0 then it is a leep year.

            This gives us 97 leep years in 400 years. 
            So 400 * 365 + 97 = 146097 days.
            146097 / 400      = 365.2425
            146097 / 400 / 12 = 30,436875

        Due to the nature of the leap year calculation, on this side of the year 2100
        you can assume every 4th year is a leap year and use the other approximatiotions

        */
    //Calculate the span in days
    int iDays = (DateTime.Now - birthDate).Days;

    //Calculate years as an integer division
    int iYear = (int)(iDays / ApproxDaysPerYear);

    //Decrease remaing days
    iDays -= (int)(iYear * ApproxDaysPerYear);

    //Calculate months as an integer division
    int iMonths = (int)(iDays / ApproxDaysPerMonth);

    //Decrease remaing days
    iDays -= (int)(iMonths * ApproxDaysPerMonth);

    //Return the result as an string   
    return string.Format("{0} years, {1} months, {2} days", iYear, iMonths, iDays);
}

Answer 3

A TimeSpan doesn't have a sensible concept of "years" because it depends on the start and end point. (Months is similar - how many months are there in 29 days? Well, it depends...)

To give a shameless plug, my Noda Time project makes this really simple though:

using System;
using NodaTime;

public class Test
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        LocalDate start = new LocalDate(2010, 6, 19);
        LocalDate end = new LocalDate(2013, 4, 11);
        Period period = Period.Between(start, end,
                                       PeriodUnits.Years | PeriodUnits.Days);

        Console.WriteLine("Between {0} and {1} are {2} years and {3} days",
                          start, end, period.Years, period.Days);
    }
}

Output:

Between 19 June 2010 and 11 April 2013 are 2 years and 296 days

Answer 4

I wouldn't do this with a TimeSpan. Date math gets tricky as soon as you go beyond days because the number of days in a month and days in a year is no longer constant. It's likely why TimeSpan does not contain properties for Years and Months. I would instead determine the number of years/months/days, etc between the two DateTime values and display the results accordingly.

Answer 5

Public Function TimeYMDBetween(StartDate As DateTime, EndDate As DateTime) As String
    Dim Years As Integer = EndDate.Year - StartDate.Year
    Dim Months As Integer = EndDate.Month - StartDate.Month
    Dim Days As Integer = EndDate.Day - StartDate.Day
    Dim DaysLastMonth As Integer

    'figure out how many days were in last month
    If EndDate.Month = 1 Then
        DaysLastMonth = DateTime.DaysInMonth(EndDate.Year - 1, 12)
    Else
        DaysLastMonth = DateTime.DaysInMonth(EndDate.Year, EndDate.Month - 1)
    End If

    'adjust for negative days
    If Days < 0 Then
        Months = Months - 1
        Days = Days + DaysLastMonth 'borrowing from last month
    End If

    'adjust for negative Months
    If Months < 0 Then 'startdate hasn't happend this year yet
        Years = Years - 1
        Months = Months + 12
    End If

    Return Years.ToString() + " Years, " + Months.ToString() + " Months and " + Days.ToString() + " Days"

End Function