Best class to represent a time - c#

I'm working on timetabling application and I have a class:
called ClassOption representing a possible time to have a class.
with fields(/properties): Day, StartTime, EndTime, and Weeks.
Now Day is easy it's type is DayOfWeek
Weeks is going to require me to make a custom class because it is represented by the universities own in-semester weeks notation or in a calendar week, but basically will come down to a set of integers, eventually.
But what calls should I use for StartTime and EndTime.
They are a time, but without any Date information.
DateTime seems like a reasonable choice, but they could be on any date. (/many dates)
By business logic they are both on the hour, but that doesn't really matter

If you're happy to use a third party library which isn't quite at v1 yet, I'd like to plug Noda Time. You'd use the LocalTime struct.
If you're stuck with the base class library, you might want to use TimeSpan, or you could stick with DateTime. Obviously I think that LocalTime would be a more elegant solution though :)
Oh, and if you do use Noda Time, please let us know if you have any feature requests or comments...

You can use the DateDiff class of the Time Period Library for .NET to represent a time period:
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
public void DateDiffSample()
{
DateTime date1 = new DateTime( 2009, 11, 8, 7, 13, 59 );
Console.WriteLine( "Date1: {0}", date1 );
// > Date1: 08.11.2009 07:13:59
DateTime date2 = new DateTime( 2011, 3, 20, 19, 55, 28 );
Console.WriteLine( "Date2: {0}", date2 );
// > Date2: 20.03.2011 19:55:28
DateDiff dateDiff = new DateDiff( date1, date2 );
// description
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(1): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 1 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(1): 1 Year
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(2): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 2 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(2): 1 Year 4 Months
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(3): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 3 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(3): 1 Year 4 Months 12 Days
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(4): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 4 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(4): 1 Year 4 Months 12 Days 12 Hours
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(5): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 5 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(5): 1 Year 4 Months 12 Days 12 Hours 41 Mins
Console.WriteLine( "DateDiff.GetDescription(6): {0}", dateDiff.GetDescription( 6 ) );
// > DateDiff.GetDescription(6): 1 Year 4 Months 12 Days 12 Hours 41 Mins 29 Secs
} // DateDiffSample

I'd use either DateTime, which can be used with time values only while ignoring the date, or with a TimeSpan, which can represent the time elapsed since midnight, and thus a time of day. In fact, that's exactly how it's used in a DateTime object, when you ask for the TimeOfDay, you get a TimeSpan.
Both are good in that they give you a set of convenient arithmetic operations to compare, add and subtract times. Just ignore the Date portion.

Related

Humanizer for DateTime

I have this code:
Configurator.DateTimeHumanizeStrategy = new PrecisionDateTimeHumanizeStrategy(.75);
var dateTime1 = DateTime.UtcNow.AddYears(2).AddMonths(-5);
var text1 = dateTime1.Humanize();
In the text1 variable I get "one year from now". But this is not very accurate. Is there any way to get "one year and seven months from now"?
Update 1:
Solution #Daniel Hoffman has some problems, for example if my date is in the past:
//UtcNow is 11.07.2021
var dateTime6 = new DateTime(2021, 4, 24);
TimeSpan dateTimeSpan6 = dateTime6 - DateTime.UtcNow;
var text6 = dateTime6.Humanize();
string textSpan6 = dateTimeSpan6.Humanize(maxUnit: TimeUnit.Year, precision: 2);
then I get "2 months, 11 weeks" which contains basically the same information twice but in different units.
Update 2:
I have fixed the problem with dates in the past, by using Duration() method:
var timeSpan = date - DateTime.UtcNow;
return timeSpan.Duration().Humanize(maxUnit: TimeUnit.Year, precision: 2, minUnit: TimeUnit.Day);
[Edit]: Using TimeSpan will allow you to specify the precision of your period, but you will lose the ability to have "yesterday" or
"tomorrow", and it omits the " ago" or " from now", all of which are
localized.
A partial workaround would be to use the TimeSpan.Humanize
method for TimeSpans less than 366 days and DateTime.Humanize
otherwise. And if it's only going to be used in one language, the user
can append the appropriate text depending on if the timespan is
negative.
You can use the precision parameter with a TimeSpan:
TimeSpan periodFromNow = DateTime.UtcNow.AddYears(2).AddMonths(-5) - DateTime.UtcNow;
Then:
string myPeriodFromNow = periodFromNow.Humanize(maxUnit: TimeUnit.Year, precision: 2);
Other examples:
TimeSpan.FromDays(486).Humanize(maxUnit: TimeUnit.Year, precision: 7) => "1 year, 3 months, 29 days" // One day further is 1 year, 4 month
TimeSpan.FromDays(517).Humanize(maxUnit: TimeUnit.Year, precision: 7) => "1 year, 4 months, 30 days" // This month has 30 days and one day further is 1 year, 5 months
See also: https://github.com/Humanizr/Humanizer#humanize-timespan
It seems like its not currently possible in Humanizer to do what you want.
Check out this method PrecisionHumanize() on line 102, if the amount of days exceeds 365 then only years will be returned. And in general it seems like only one type of length of time can be returned, there is no years and months or minutes and seconds, just the largest one.
But check out another library called NodaTime it might be able to do what you want.
Here is a link to a different question similar to yours.

Comparing dates with week, month and year using .NET

I am currently doing this way to convert week of the year to milliseconds.
DateTime source = new DateTime(2014, 1, 1);
int weeks = 14; //first week of April
**int month = 4; //I don't use it yet**
int delta = 7 + DayOfWeek.Wednesday - source.DayOfWeek;
if (delta >= 7)
delta -= 7;
source = source.AddDays((weeks- 1) * 7 + delta);
double timeMs = (source - new DateTime(1970, 1, 1)).TotalMilliseconds;
Although, I came across with problems that a given week can belong to two months, just like the 14th week of 2014 belongs to March and April.
For example, I receive these entries:
week: 14, month: 3, year: 2014, total: 13
week: 14, month: 4, year: 2014, total: 98
The way I'm doing I get the same time-stamp in ms for both entries which is good for building a chart of week evolution but it is bad if I want to filter data by month and week at the same time (example: from week 14 of April to week 15 of April -> I don't want to get those 13 equipment to be related to the week 14 of April)
So my question is: given a week of the year, month and year is there any way (library or not) to compare two dates accurately with these fields?
PS: On the front-end I use moment.js to get the week of the year, month and year of a given date.
Thanks anyway.
You can use the Week class of the Time Period Library for .NET:
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
public void WeekOfYear()
{
Week week = new Week( 2014, 14 );
Console.WriteLine( "Week: {0}", week );
Console.WriteLine( "Year: {0}, Month: {1}", week.Start.Year, week.Start.Month );
Console.WriteLine( "NextWeek: {0}", week.GetNextWeek() );
} // WeekOfYear
You can use the calendar class to get the week number http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.calendar(v=vs.110).aspx

How to find overlapping hours of a timerange and a date range?

I have a time range 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM. (night hours range)
I have date range for eg.,
2014-04-01 00:00:00 to 2014-04-02 23:59:59
Now I need to calculate how many night hours are present in the given date range.
For the above example it should return 11 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds
Explanation:
2014-04-01 00:00 AM to 2014-04-01 5:00 AM = 5 hours
2014-04-01 11:00 PM to 2014-04-02 5:00 AM = 6 hours
2014-04-02 11:00 PM to 2014-04-02 11:59:59 PM = 0 hour 59 minutes 59 seconds
one second approximation is okay.
If these are strings, you need to parse them to DateTime with DateTime.ParseExact method and then get difference them with - operator. This gets you a TimeSpan. I see your strings have different formats. You need to parse them matched format one by one.
After that, you can use TimeSpan properties like;
string s = "2014-04-01 00:00 AM";
var date = DateTime.ParseExact(s,
"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm tt",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
string s1 = "2014-04-01 5:00 AM";
var date1 = DateTime.ParseExact(s1,
"yyyy-MM-dd H:mm tt",
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
TimeSpan ts = date1 - date;
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(#"{0} hours {1} minutes {2} seconds",
ts.Hours, ts.Minutes, ts.Seconds));
Output will be;
5 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds
If they are already DateTime, just use - operator and use .Hours, .Minutes and .Seconds properties of TimeSpan structure.
There is a project called Calculating Business Hours which is calculate business hours between two DateTime. You can implement your own night shift hours based this project.
You can use the CalendarPeriodCollector of the Time Period Library for .NET:
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
public void NightHours()
{
CalendarPeriodCollectorFilter filter = new CalendarPeriodCollectorFilter();
filter.CollectingHours.Add( new HourRange( 0, 5 ) ); // working hours
filter.CollectingHours.Add( new HourRange( 23, 24 ) ); // working hours
CalendarTimeRange testPeriod =
new CalendarTimeRange( new DateTime( 2014, 4, 1 ),
new DateTime( 2014, 4, 3 ) );
Console.WriteLine( "Calendar period collector of period: " + testPeriod );
CalendarPeriodCollector collector =
new CalendarPeriodCollector( filter, testPeriod );
collector.CollectHours();
Console.WriteLine( "Duration: " + new DateDiff( collector.Periods.TotalDuration ) );
} // NightHours

Behavior of DateTime.AddYears on leap year

Can anyone explain the mathematical or simply the reasoning behind the leap year calculations in .NET when using AddYears method on DateTime?
If you take the 29th Feb 2012 and add a year, you get the 28th Feb 2013, not the 1st Mar 2013 (day before one year later).
If you add one year to 31st Jan 2012, you get 31st Jan 2013 (same date one year later).
I think most people would assume that "one year from 29.02.leapX is 01.03.leapX+1".
Example:
// Testing with 29th Feb
var now1 = DateTime.Parse("2012-02-29 15:00:00");
var results1 = new DateTime[]
{
now1.AddYears(1),
now1.AddYears(2),
now1.AddYears(3),
now1.AddYears(4)
};
foreach(var dt in results1)
{
Console.WriteLine(dt.ToString("s"));
}
// Output:
// 2013-02-28T15:00:00
// 2014-02-28T15:00:00
// 2015-02-28T15:00:00
// 2016-02-29T15:00:00
// Testing with 31st Jan
var now2 = DateTime.Parse("2012-01-31 13:00:00");
var results2 = new DateTime[]
{
now2.AddYears(1),
now2.AddYears(2),
now2.AddYears(3),
now2.AddYears(4)
};
foreach(var dt in results2)
{
Console.WriteLine(dt.ToString("s"));
}
// Output:
// 2013-01-31T13:00:00
// 2014-01-31T13:00:00
// 2015-01-31T13:00:00
// 2016-01-31T13:00:00
I think most people would assume that "one year from 29.02.leapX is 01.03.leapX+1".
I wouldn't. I would normally expect truncation. It's fundamentally similar to adding one month to January 30th - I'd expect to get the last day in February. In both cases, you're adding a "larger unit" (month or year) and a "smaller unit" (day) is being truncated to fit in with the year/month combination.
(This is how Joda Time and Noda Time behave too, btw.)
As Tim mentioned in comments, it's documented that way too:
The AddYears method calculates the resulting year taking into account leap years. The month and time-of-day part of the resulting DateTime object remains the same as this instance.
So the month has to stay as February; the year will change based on how many years are being added, obviously - so the day has to adjust to stay valid.
With your rationale then 1-Mar-2012 would become 2-Mar-2012 when you added a year. If you add this shift for all prior leap years then you are going to find your calculation massively adrift. The only sensible response is to return 28-Feb for non-leap years.
It is interesting, nether-the-less ..
e.g. this function is sometimes used:
private static int Age(DateTime birthDate, DateTime asAtDate)
{
// Calculate age in years
int age = asAtDate.Year - birthDate.Year;
if (asAtDate < birthDate.AddYears(age)) age--;
if (age < 0) age = 0;
return age;
}
If a person was born on 29Feb2016, this function is going to conclude they have reached age 1 on 28Feb2017.
I noted Excel Function examples as per:
=DATEDIF(DATE(2016,2,28),DATE(2017,2,28),"Y")
gives result of 1
=DATEDIF(DATE(2016,2,29),DATE(2017,2,28),"Y")
gives result of 0
=DATEDIF(DATE(2016,2,29),DATE(2017,3,1),"Y")
gives result of 1
=DATEDIF(DATE(2016,3,1),DATE(2017,3,1),"Y")
gives result of 1

c# find same range of "named days" from 1 year ago

using c# visual studio 2008.
Can anyone help with an algorithm to do this please
if i have a range of days selected for this week (eg monday to friday) i can find the dates for these using the datetime functions available.
What i want to do is compared to stored data for the same DAY range 1 year ago.
So basicly i need to go back 1 year and find the dates for the nearest Mon to fri DAY range from 1 year previous. I guess i also need to take into acount leap years.
Can anyone help with a suitable algorithm on how to achieve this.
Of course the DAY for todays date last year is not going to be the same day.
thanks in advance
Here's some code which might do what you want - but the test cases show that there are corner cases to consider:
using System;
public class Test
{
static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine(SameDayLastYear(DateTime.Today));
Console.WriteLine(SameDayLastYear(new DateTime(2010, 12, 31)));
}
static DateTime SameDayLastYear(DateTime original)
{
DateTime sameDate = original.AddYears(-1);
int daysDiff = original.DayOfWeek - sameDate.DayOfWeek;
return sameDate.AddDays(daysDiff);
}
}
What would you want the result for the second call to be? This code returns January 1st 2010, because that's the closest date to "a year ago on the same day".
I strongly suggest that whatever you go with, you have unit tests checking leap years, start and end of year etc.
Let's say you select Wednesday 10-02-2010 - Friday 12-02-2010 this year.
Last year that would have been Tuesday 10-02-2009 - Thursday 12-02-2009.
So you can do the following: Go back a year by simply performing DateTime.AddYears(-1). Make sure you correct for leap years here.
Then you use .AddDays(1) until you end up on a Wednesday - Friday timeframe.
That way you only have to take leap years into account at one point and this should produce the result you need.
I just subtracted one year then ran backwards until I found a Monday. LastYear will end up being the first Monday before this date last year
DateTime LastYear = DateTime.Now.AddYears(-1)
DayOfWeek Check = LastYear.DayOfWeek;
while (Check != DayOfWeek.Monday)
{
LastYear = LastYear.addDays(-1);
Check = LastYear.DayOfWeek;
}
Console.WriteLine("{0}",LastYear);
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
DateTime lastyear = now.AddYears(-1);
string dayOfWeek = lastyear.DayOfWeek.ToString();
if (dayOfWeek.Equals("Saturday")) { dayOfWeek = "Friday"; }
else if (dayOfWeek.Equals("Sunday")) { dayOfWeek = "Monday"; }
Console.WriteLine(dayOfWeek);
Console.ReadKey();
Get a datetime object for last year, then use the DayOfWeek property.
This was pretty fun.
// today's info
DateTime today = DateTime.Now;
DayOfWeek today_name = today.DayOfWeek;
// this day one year ago
DateTime year_ago = today - new TimeSpan( ((today.Year - 1) % 4) ? 365 : 366, 0, 0, 0);
// find the closest day to today's info's name
DayOfWeek today_name_a_year_ago = year_ago.DayOfWeek;
DateTime current_range_a_year_ago = year_ago - new TimeSpan( year_ago.DayOfWeek - today_name, 0, 0, 0);
Console.WriteLine( "Today is {0}, {1}", today_name, today);
Console.WriteLine( "One year from today was {0}, {1}", today_name_a_year_ago, year_ago);
Console.WriteLine( "New date range is {0}", current_range_a_year_ago);
I would highly recommend using the unit testing features built into VS2008 to make sure you account for corner cases.

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