Get TimeSpan from HH:mm:ss string

Question

I'm trying to get a TimeSpan from "24:30:00" string so I can define cacheOptions in C# but I'm getting 24 days instead of 24 hours.

string cacheExpirationTime = "24:00:00";
var cacheOptions = new MemoryCacheOptions()
{
    ExpirationScanFrequency = TimeSpan.Parse(cacheExpirationTime, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
};

I also tried without using CultureInfo, but it didn't work.

Which is the proper way to do this?

Mark Cilia Vincenti · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-11T12:49:37.997

2

24 hours is 1 day, so you should format it as such.

string cacheExpirationTime = "1.00:00:00";
var cacheOptions = new MemoryCacheOptions()
{
    ExpirationScanFrequency = TimeSpan.Parse(cacheExpirationTime, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
};

edited Jan 11 '23 at 12:49

answered Jan 11 '23 at 12:05

Mark Cilia Vincenti

1,410
8
25

Seems like sending 24:00:00 throws an overflow exception, so I changed to 12 instead. – Aritzbn Jan 11 '23 at 12:45
1

@Aritzbn, you're right, edited my example to remove the custom format. Just use the first example. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 11 '23 at 12:49

Filip Huhta · Answer 2 · 2023-01-11T13:17:18.213

1

If you want to use the format hh:mm:ss. You need to specify the format, here "hh:mm:ss" is used. hh is for hours, mm for minutes, and ss for seconds.

Be aware that 24:00:00 could not be used because it's not a valid value for a TimeSpan object. The largest possible value for a TimeSpan object is 23:59:59, so any value greater than that will cause an OverflowException to be thrown.

string cacheExpirationTime = "23:59:59";
string format = "hh\\:mm\\:ss";

var cacheOptions = new MemoryCacheOptions()
{
    ExpirationScanFrequency = TimeSpan.ParseExact(cacheExpirationTime, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
};

edited Jan 11 '23 at 13:17

answered Jan 11 '23 at 12:04

Filip Huhta

2,043
7
25

1

The necessity of escaping the colon with back slashes in the TimeSpan format string, as opposed to DateTime format string, is really a design flaw in .NET. – lidqy Jan 11 '23 at 12:21
1

This code throws an `OverflowException`. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 11 '23 at 12:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 11 '23 at 12:02

0

By default, TimeStamp assumes the input string represents a time duration in the format days.hours:minutes:seconds so you need to use a custom format string with TimeSpan.ParseExact() method like this:

string cacheExpirationTime = "24:00:00";
var cacheOptions = new MemoryCacheOptions()
{
    ExpirationScanFrequency = TimeSpan.ParseExact(cacheExpirationTime, @"h\:mm\:ss", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
};

answered Jan 11 '23 at 12:02

Doma G2

34
3

2

This code throws an `OverflowException`. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 11 '23 at 12:51

Get TimeSpan from HH:mm:ss string

3 Answers3