Get DateTime.Now with milliseconds precision

Question

How can I exactly construct a time stamp of actual time with milliseconds precision?

I need something like 16.4.2013 9:48:00:123. Is this possible? I have an applic

Answer 1

The trouble with DateTime.UtcNow and DateTime.Now is that, depending on the computer and operating system, it may only be accurate to between 10 and 15 milliseconds. However, on windows computers one can use by using the low level function GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime to get microsecond accuracy, see the function GetTimeStamp() below.

    [System.Security.SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity, System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    static extern void GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime(out FileTime pFileTime);

    [System.Runtime.InteropServices.StructLayout(System.Runtime.InteropServices.LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public struct FileTime  {
        public const long FILETIME_TO_DATETIMETICKS = 504911232000000000;   // 146097 = days in 400 year Gregorian calendar cycle. 504911232000000000 = 4 * 146097 * 86400 * 1E7
        public uint TimeLow;    // least significant digits
        public uint TimeHigh;   // most sifnificant digits
        public long TimeStamp_FileTimeTicks { get { return TimeHigh * 4294967296 + TimeLow; } }     // ticks since 1-Jan-1601 (1 tick = 100 nanosecs). 4294967296 = 2^32
        public DateTime dateTime { get { return new DateTime(TimeStamp_FileTimeTicks + FILETIME_TO_DATETIMETICKS); } }
    }

    public static DateTime GetTimeStamp() { 
        FileTime ft; GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime(out ft);
        return ft.dateTime;
    }