How do I convert an ISO8601 TimeSpan to a C# TimeS

Question

I am getting a System.FormatException when I try to do the following (as an example):

TimeSpan ts = XmlConvert.ToTimeSpan("P72H");

I've investigated the ISO8601 Standard and it seems to be correct, but I cannot get it to parse hours without throwing an exception, no matter what I do.

Thanks!

EDIT:

Exception detail:

System.FormatException was unhandled by user code
HResult=-2146233033
Message=The string 'P72H' is not a valid TimeSpan value.
Source=System.Xml

Answer 1

You need to add the Time separator to your string. Try this:

TimeSpan ts = XmlConvert.ToTimeSpan("PT72H");

See the duration specification - http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#duration

3.2.6.1 Lexical representation
The lexical representation for duration is the [ISO 8601] extended format PnYn MnDTnH nMnS, where nY represents the number of years, nM the number of months, nD the number of days, 'T' is the date/time separator, nH the number of hours, nM the number of minutes and nS the number of seconds. The number of seconds can include decimal digits to arbitrary precision.

Answer 2

Please use the following format for System.Xml.XmlConvert.ToTimeSpan("PnYnMnDTnHnMnS").

P - The designator must be placed before date format.

nY - Number of years, ex: 2Y
nM - Number of months ex: 4M
nD - Number of Days ex: 6D

T - The designator that must be placed before the time format

nH - Number of Hours ex: 8H
nM - Number of Minutes ex: 12M
nS - Number of seconds ex: 14S

System.Xml.XmlConvert.ToTimeSpan("P2Y4M6DT8H14M18S")

Here, the confusion part with Month and Minutes have the same letter to denote, but the designator usage makes them separate to understand easily.

Answer 3

You must have missed something in the standard. The following:

System.Xml.XmlConvert.ToString(TimeSpan.FromHours(12))

gives me the string PT12H. So it seems like the time portion needs to be prefixed with a T. And the following parses correctly:

System.Xml.XmlConvert.ToTimeSpan("PT25H")

(To a TimeSpan that stringifies to 1.01:00:00.)