When I return the string timeTaken, it is null, and it says this on the IDE to, although it has been defined in the main method (TimeSpan timeTaken = timer.Elapsed;)
class Program
{
public static string timeTaken;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(firstline);
Stopwatch timer = new Stopwatch();
timer.Start();
using (var response = request.GetResponse());
timer.Stop();
TimeSpan timeTaken = timer.Elapsed;
...
}
}
How can I output timeTaken?
You define a local variable with the same name
TimeSpan timeTaken
which hides your static class field.
To output the value of timer.Elapsed you could write something like this:
Console.WriteLine("{0}", timer.Elapsed);