Get Date Time Hours and Minutes with leading Zero

Question

I'm trying to figure out the simplest code to add leading zeros on to the hours and minutes from the DateTime.Now function. I need to combine only the hours and minutes, and I don't need the rest of the date.

Whats the best way to do this?

My code looks like this:

DateTime.Now.Hour.ToString() + ":" + DateTime.Now.Minute.ToString();

However I get data such as 16:4 for 4:04PM and I need it to look like 16:04. I'm familiar with the msdn articles on datetime formatting but I didn't see anything that addresses this specifically.

Is it possible combining `DateTime.Now.Hour.ToString() + ":" + DateTime.Now.Minute.ToString();

If not how would I pull only the HH:MM out of DateTime.Now easily?

Looking for least lines of code possible because this is something that I will be utilizing often. Thanks

Answer 1

DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm") // for non military time
DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm") // for military time (24 hour clock)

Using hh vs h will do a leading 0. Same with mm for minutes. If you want seconds, you can use ss.

MM - Month with leading 0
M - Month without leading 0
dd - Day with leading 0
d - Day without leading 0
yyyy - 4 Digit year
yy - 2 Digit year
HH - Military Hour with leading 0
H - Military Hour without leading 0
hh - Hour with leading 0
h - Hour without leading 0
mm - Minute with leading 0
m - Minute without leading 0
ss - Second with leading 0
s - Second without leading 0
tt - AM / PM 

There are many more. You should check the MSDN documentation for the full reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/zdtaw1bw.aspx

Answer 2

If you only want the hours and minutes as separated values you can use

DateTime.Now.Hour.ToString("00.##") + ":" + DateTime.Now.Minute.ToString("00.##");

Answer 3

You should check out MSDN's Standard Date And Time Format Strings