TimeSpan / 2

[Michael C]

IS there a reason Timespan doesn't have an operator for divide? Being that
it's an amount of time I would have thought it should. Really it's just a
wrapper around a double variable?

Thanks,
Michael

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

Michael,

It's not really a wrapper around a double variable. More like a 64 bit
integer.

You can always get the value of the Ticks property, divide it by two,
and create a new TimeSpan instance from that.
--
- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- mv*@spam.guard.caspershouse.com

"Michael C" <no****@nospam.comwrote in message
news:eg**************@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

IS there a reason Timespan doesn't have an operator for divide? Being that
it's an amount of time I would have thought it should. Really it's just a
wrapper around a double variable?

Thanks,
Michael

[Michael C]

"Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]" <mv*@spam.guard.caspershouse.comwrote in
message news:B9**********************************@microsof t.com...

Michael,

It's not really a wrapper around a double variable. More like a 64 bit
integer.

Good point.

You can always get the value of the Ticks property, divide it by two,
and create a new TimeSpan instance from that.

Yes, in my case I just got total seconds and divided by 2 but I'm still
curious as to why there is no operator for divide. I guess seeing no one
came up with a reason that means the reason is MS simply forgot.

Michael

[Peter Duniho]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:55:16 -0800, Michael C <mi**@nospam.comwrote:

[...] I guess seeing no one
came up with a reason that means the reason is MS simply forgot.

At best, it means that no one reading your post knows the answer.

You can't infer anything about the actual reason from a lack of responses.

Pete

[Michael C]

"Peter Duniho" <Np*********@nnowslpianmk.comwrote in message
news:op***************@petes-computer.local...

At best, it means that no one reading your post knows the answer.

Got a reason then?

[Peter Duniho]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:25:46 -0800, Michael C <mi**@nospam.comwrote:

"Peter Duniho" <Np*********@nnowslpianmk.comwrote in message
news:op***************@petes-computer.local...

>At best, it means that no one reading your post knows the answer.

Got a reason then?

Why do I need an answer to the question just to point out that there's no
way (at present) to know the answer to the question? What would the point
be in pointing out that we don't know the reason if I actually knew the
reason?

[Michael C]

"Peter Duniho" <Np*********@nnowslpianmk.comwrote in message
news:op***************@petes-computer.local...

>Got a reason then?

Why do I need an answer to the question just to point out that there's no
way (at present) to know the answer to the question? What would the point
be in pointing out that we don't know the reason if I actually knew the
reason?

Well, I'm sure if there was a reason a smart guy like you would know it.

[Chris Shepherd]

Michael C wrote:

Yes, in my case I just got total seconds and divided by 2 but I'm still
curious as to why there is no operator for divide. I guess seeing no one
came up with a reason that means the reason is MS simply forgot.

I am with Peter on this, just because it wasn't done doesn't mean they forgot.

The possibility which makes the most sense to me relates to code clarity. Making
you use a property of the TimeSpan makes it perfectly clear what property you
are doing the math on, and what your expected result would be.

I'm not saying it's a perfect reason to not do it, I'm just guessing and don't
know any more than the people who have already spoken up.
Chris.

[Michael C]

"Chris Shepherd" <ch**@nospam.chsh.cawrote in message
news:ug**************@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

I am with Peter on this, just because it wasn't done doesn't mean they
forgot.

The possibility which makes the most sense to me relates to code clarity.
Making you use a property of the TimeSpan makes it perfectly clear what
property you are doing the math on, and what your expected result would
be.

I'm not saying it's a perfect reason to not do it, I'm just guessing and
don't know any more than the people who have already spoken up.

To me it made such perfect sense that I went and coded it fully expecting it
to work. I was quite suprised some time later to get a compile error. The
alternative:

TimeSpan ts2 = new TimeSpan(ts1.Ticks / 2)

appears much more complicated and although I presume that is the correct way
to do it I'm still not certain. Should I convert it to Milliseconds and back
or maybe seconds? Should I be using a double variable or an integer or long?

The only thing I can think of is that doing "ts1 / 2" it's not clear how it
will round but I don't think that's much of an issue. Obviously programmers
will expect it to have a certain level of resolution and that dividing by 2
could cause some minor loss of information.

Michael

[Chris Shepherd]

Michael C wrote:

To me it made such perfect sense that I went and coded it fully expecting it
to work. I was quite suprised some time later to get a compile error. The
alternative:

TimeSpan ts2 = new TimeSpan(ts1.Ticks / 2)

appears much more complicated and although I presume that is the correct way
to do it I'm still not certain. Should I convert it to Milliseconds and back
or maybe seconds? Should I be using a double variable or an integer or long?

The only thing I can think of is that doing "ts1 / 2" it's not clear how it
will round but I don't think that's much of an issue. Obviously programmers
will expect it to have a certain level of resolution and that dividing by 2
could cause some minor loss of information.

If you divide one int by another, the result is not rounded, it is truncated. If
you divide 99 by 100 the integer result is 0. This is likely why a TimeSpan,
which is purported by others to be just a wrapper for Int64, wouldn't have a
divisor or multiplier implementation.
If you need to ensure rounding occurs, you'll need to store it in a more precise
type and then round it back to an integer.

Chris.

[Michael C]

"Chris Shepherd" <ch**@nospam.chsh.cawrote in message
news:Ob**************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

If you divide one int by another, the result is not rounded, it is
truncated.

I was aware of this, I just used the wrong word.

If you divide 99 by 100 the integer result is 0. This is likely why a
TimeSpan, which is purported by others to be just a wrapper for Int64,
wouldn't have a divisor or multiplier implementation.
If you need to ensure rounding occurs, you'll need to store it in a more
precise type and then round it back to an integer.

This was something I suggested a while ago. If you're timing something that
does 1,000,000 iterations then you might find that when you divide the
timespan by 1,000,000 that you get zero. I don't really think this is a
problem as many other timing methods can result in zero also, eg using
GetTickCount.

>
Chris.

[Michael C]

"Israel" <is**********@hotmail.comwrote in message
news:1c**********************************@f47g2000 hsd.googlegroups.com...

I think if the "TimeSpan" is going to be the universal representation
of a vector in the time then it makes perfect sense to have a multiply
and divide operator on it.

At least I'm not going mad. I guess the nature of newsgroups is that
generally those who agree don't reply. :-)

If I want to use it for a sampling
interval which may dynamically change based on a multiplier then I'm
forced to write extra code to do what seems like an natural
extension. Why even use a TimeSpan in that case? It's almost cleaner
to just use a tick count since I can add ticks to a DateTime to get a
new DateTime.

Yes. If you want to divide TimeSpan by 2 to create another TimeSpan then you
need to know how it implements itself internally anyway.

Michael