How does DateTime Now Ticks exactly work

Question

In my application I generate files at random opportunities  To ensure a unique naming  I tried to use the nano seconds since 1 1 1970   long time   DateTime Now Ticks  String fileName   Convert ToString time   Console WriteLine fileName     Now I observed something weird  Why is the output like that  I mean why are the last 4 numbers always the same  I can use this as a filename  that is not the problem  but I m just wondering about it   634292263478068039 634292263512888039 634292263541368039 634292263603448039 634292263680078039

User · Accepted Answer

The resolution of DateTime Now depends on your system timer   10ms on a current Windows OS    so it s giving the same ending value there  it doesn t count any more finite than that

User · Answer

to convert the current datetime to file name to save files you can use   DateTime Now ToFileTime      this should resolve your objective

User · Answer

I had a similar problem   I would also look at this answer  Is there a high resolution  microsecond  nanosecond  DateTime object available for the CLR    About half-way down is an answer by  Robert P  with some extension functions I found useful

User · Answer

You can get the milliseconds since 1 1 1970 using such code   private static DateTime JanFirst1970   new DateTime 1970  1  1   public static long getTime         return  long   DateTime Now ToUniversalTime   - JanFirst1970  TotalMilliseconds   0 5

User · Answer

Not really an answer to your question as asked  but thought I d chip in about your general objective    There already is a method to generate random file names in  NET   See System Path GetTempFileName and GetRandomFileName   Alternatively  it is a common practice to use a GUID to name random files

[c#] How does DateTime.Now.Ticks exactly work?

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