How to Get Elapsed Time in VB.NET

Yesterday I was developing a XML reader where the app will wait for a certain period of time (in minutes) before re-processing the same xml files again. To get elapsed time in minutes, I used the TimeSpan class which represents the time interval together with DateTime object. By setting the Start time and using the Now.Subtract method to subtract the start time and the current time, you can obtain a result of type TimeSpan. Here is a brief sample source code of what I have.

    'Declare variables
    Private tsElapseTime As TimeSpan
    Private dtStartTime As DateTime

    'Call to start counting
    Private Sub StartTime() As Integer
       dtStartTime = Now
     End Sub
    
    'Call to get the elapsed time in minutes
    Private Function GetTimeSpanInMins() As Integer
       tsElapseTime = Now.Subtract(dtStartTime)
       return tsElapseTime.Minutes
    End Function
    

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