How to produce "human readable" strings to represent a TimeSpan

Question

I have a TimeSpan representing the amount of time a client has been connected to my server. I want to display that TimeSpan to the user. But I don't want to be overly verbose to displaying that information (ex: 2hr 3min 32.2345sec = too detailed!)

For example: If the connection time is...

> 0 seconds and < 1 minute   ----->  0 Seconds
> 1 minute  and < 1 hour     ----->  0 Minutes, 0 Seconds
> 1 hour    and < 1 day      ----->  0 Hours, 0 Minutes
> 1 day                      ----->  0 Days, 0 Hours

And of course, in cases where the numeral is 1 (ex: 1 seconds, 1 minutes, 1 hours, 1 days), I would like to make the text singular (ex: 1 second, 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day).

Is there anyway to easily implement this without a giant set of if/else clauses? Here is what I'm currently doing.

public string GetReadableTimeSpan(TimeSpan value)
{
    string duration;

    if (value.TotalMinutes < 1)
        duration = value.Seconds + " Seconds";
    else if (value.TotalHours < 1)
        duration = value.Minutes + " Minutes, " + value.Seconds + " Seconds";
    else if (value.TotalDays < 1)
        duration = value.Hours + " Hours, " + value.Minutes + " Minutes";
    else
        duration = value.Days + " Days, " + value.Hours + " Hours";

    if (duration.StartsWith("1 Seconds") || duration.EndsWith(" 1 Seconds"))
        duration = duration.Replace("1 Seconds", "1 Second");

    if (duration.StartsWith("1 Minutes") || duration.EndsWith(" 1 Minutes"))
        duration = duration.Replace("1 Minutes", "1 Minute");

    if (duration.StartsWith("1 Hours") || duration.EndsWith(" 1 Hours"))
        duration = duration.Replace("1 Hours", "1 Hour");

    if (duration.StartsWith("1 Days"))
        duration = duration.Replace("1 Days", "1 Day");

    return duration;
}

Answer 1

To get rid of the complex if and switch constructs you can use a Dictionary lookup for the correct format string based on TotalSeconds and a CustomFormatter to format the supplied Timespan accordingly.

public string GetReadableTimespan(TimeSpan ts)
{
     // formats and its cutoffs based on totalseconds
     var cutoff = new SortedList<long, string> { 
       {59, "{3:S}" }, 
       {60, "{2:M}" },
       {60*60-1, "{2:M}, {3:S}"},
       {60*60, "{1:H}"},
       {24*60*60-1, "{1:H}, {2:M}"},
       {24*60*60, "{0:D}"},
       {Int64.MaxValue , "{0:D}, {1:H}"}
     };

     // find nearest best match
     var find = cutoff.Keys.ToList()
                   .BinarySearch((long)ts.TotalSeconds);
     // negative values indicate a nearest match
     var near = find<0?Math.Abs(find)-1:find;
     // use custom formatter to get the string
     return String.Format(
         new HMSFormatter(), 
         cutoff[cutoff.Keys[near]], 
         ts.Days, 
         ts.Hours, 
         ts.Minutes, 
         ts.Seconds);
}

// formatter for forms of
// seconds/hours/day
public class HMSFormatter:ICustomFormatter, IFormatProvider
{
    // list of Formats, with a P customformat for pluralization
    static Dictionary<string, string> timeformats = new Dictionary<string, string> {
        {"S", "{0:P:Seconds:Second}"},
        {"M", "{0:P:Minutes:Minute}"},
        {"H","{0:P:Hours:Hour}"},
        {"D", "{0:P:Days:Day}"}
    };

    public string Format(string format, object arg, IFormatProvider formatProvider)
    {
        return String.Format(new PluralFormatter(),timeformats[format], arg);
    }

    public object GetFormat(Type formatType)
    {
        return formatType == typeof(ICustomFormatter)?this:null;
    }   
}

// formats a numeric value based on a format P:Plural:Singular
public class PluralFormatter:ICustomFormatter, IFormatProvider
{

   public string Format(string format, object arg, IFormatProvider formatProvider)
   {
     if (arg !=null)
     {
         var parts = format.Split(':'); // ["P", "Plural", "Singular"]

         if (parts[0] == "P") // correct format?
         {
            // which index postion to use
            int partIndex = (arg.ToString() == "1")?2:1;
            // pick string (safe guard for array bounds) and format
            return String.Format("{0} {1}", arg, (parts.Length>partIndex?parts[partIndex]:""));               
         }
     }
     return String.Format(format, arg);
   }

   public object GetFormat(Type formatType)
   {
       return formatType == typeof(ICustomFormatter)?this:null;
   }   
}

Answer 2

Why not simply something like this?

public static class TimespanExtensions
{
    public static string ToHumanReadableString (this TimeSpan t)
    {
        if (t.TotalSeconds <= 1) {
            return $@"{t:s\.ff} seconds";
        }
        if (t.TotalMinutes <= 1) {
            return $@"{t:%s} seconds";
        }
        if (t.TotalHours <= 1) {
            return $@"{t:%m} minutes";
        }
        if (t.TotalDays <= 1) {
            return $@"{t:%h} hours";
        }

        return $@"{t:%d} days";
    }
}

If you prefer two units of time (e.g. minutes plus seconds), that would be very simple to add.

Answer 3

I built upon Bjorn's answer to fit my needs, wanted to share in case anyone else saw this issue. May save them time. The accepted answer is a bit heavyweight for my needs.

    private static string FormatTimeSpan(TimeSpan timeSpan)
    {
        Func<Tuple<int,string>, string> tupleFormatter = t => $"{t.Item1} {t.Item2}{(t.Item1 == 1 ? string.Empty : "s")}";
        var components = new List<Tuple<int, string>>
        {
            Tuple.Create((int) timeSpan.TotalDays, "day"),
            Tuple.Create(timeSpan.Hours, "hour"),
            Tuple.Create(timeSpan.Minutes, "minute"),
            Tuple.Create(timeSpan.Seconds, "second"),
        };

        components.RemoveAll(i => i.Item1 == 0);

        string extra = "";

        if (components.Count > 1)
        {
            var finalComponent = components[components.Count - 1];
            components.RemoveAt(components.Count - 1);
            extra = $" and {tupleFormatter(finalComponent)}";
        }

        return $"{string.Join(", ", components.Select(tupleFormatter))}{extra}";
    }