⏱️ Stop Parsing Durations by Hand — Meet SmartTimeSpanParser for .NET 9

cdilorenzo — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 10:07:54 +0000

Tired of writing boilerplate code to parse time durations like "2h 30m" or "1.5 days" into TimeSpan objects?
You're not alone. That's why I created:

👉 SmartTimeSpanParser

A small but powerful .NET library that converts natural language time durations into native TimeSpan values.

💡 Why This Library?

We’ve all been there:

TimeSpan.FromHours(2.5); // Cool. But what if the input is "2h 30m"?

Parsing text inputs from config files, CLI args, or user interfaces usually leads to ugly regex and a bunch of if-else spaghetti. With SmartTimeSpanParser, you write:

var span = SmartTimeSpan.Parse("1h 15m"); // ⏱️ 01:15:00

And you’re done.

🚀 Features

✅ Parses common formats like:

2h, 30m, 1.5 days, 90s

1h 30m, 2d 3h

✅ Returns native TimeSpan

✅ Supports TryParse

✅ Zero dependencies — just plug & play

✅ Targeting .NET 9 💪

📦 Install via NuGet

dotnet add package SmartTimeSpanParser

✅ Example Usage

var duration = SmartTimeSpan.Parse("2d 4h 15m");

Console.WriteLine(duration); // 52:15:00

Need to validate input safely?

if (SmartTimeSpan.TryParse("45 minutes", out var result))
{
Console.WriteLine(result); // 00:45:00
}

🛠️ What's Next?

Coming soon:

ToHumanString() → Turn TimeSpan back into "2h 30m"

Localization support (de, fr, es)

CLI tool

Milliseconds support

🤝 Contributors Welcome

Have a cool idea? Found a missing edge case?
Open a PR or an issue here:
👉 https://github.com/cdilorenzo/SmartTimeSpanParser

🧪 Fully Tested

With full test coverage using xUnit, you can trust it in production.

⭐ Support the Project

If you find this library useful:

➡️ Give it a ⭐ on GitHub
➡️ Share it with your developer friends
➡️ Use it in your next project!

Let me know what you think — I’d love feedback or ideas for future improvements!

Stop parsing “last 3 business days” by hand — I built a fluent date range parser for .NET

cdilorenzo — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 13:28:25 +0000

How many times have you written code like this? 👇


csharp
var today = DateTime.Today;
var start = today.AddDays(-7);

while (start.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Saturday || start.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Sunday)
    start = start.AddDays(-1);

Just to figure out what “last 3 business days” means? I got tired of it, so I built this:

var range = SmartDateRange.Parse("last 3 business days");

Console.WriteLine(range.Start); // e.g. 2024-05-29
Console.WriteLine(range.End);   // e.g. 2024-05-31

✅ Supports:

"today", "yesterday"

"last N days"

"last N business days"

"this week", "this month"

And more, with TryParse support for safe usage



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🔍 Why I Built It

I was working on a reporting dashboard and found that:

Existing libraries were either too heavy (NLP, ML-based)

Or too manual (lots of repetitive date math)


So I built something focused, lightweight, and fluent — no external dependencies, just solid .NET 9.


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🚀 Features

✅ Fluent API: SmartDateRange.Parse("this week")

✅ TryParse() fallback to avoid exceptions

✅ Easy to integrate into LINQ filters or APIs

✅ Culture-ready (localization support incoming)



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🧪 Try It

You can grab the package from GitHub:

📦 GitHub: https://github.com/cdilorenzo/SmartDateRangeParser
(Coming soon to NuGet!)


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🤝 Contribute or Give Feedback

Pull requests welcome

Feature requests encouraged

⭐ Stars appreciated if you find it useful


Let me know what use case you'd like to see supported next!


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🧠 Built with ❤️ by @cdilorenzo

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Forem: cdilorenzo

⏱️ Stop Parsing Durations by Hand — Meet SmartTimeSpanParser for .NET 9

Stop parsing “last 3 business days” by hand — I built a fluent date range parser for .NET