difference

Description

Computes the difference between two dates or datetimes.

Input / Parameter

Name	Description	Input Type	Default	Options	Required
date1	The date to be subtracted from the second date.	Text	-	-	Yes
dateFormat1	The date and/or time format to use.	Text	yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss	yyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss, yyyy-MM-dd, HH:mm:ss, y, M, d, h, H, m, s, S, E, z	No
date2	The date to subtract the first date from.	Text	-	-	Yes
dateFormat2	The date and/or time format to use.	Text	yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss	yyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss, yyyy-MM-dd, HH:mm:ss, y, M, d, h, H, m, s, S, E, z	No
interval	The type of time interval to be used to compute the difference.	Text	Days	Days, Years, Months, Weeks, Hours, Minutes, Seconds	No

Supported date pattern letters

Years:

• YYYY: 4-digit year (e.g., 2021)

• YY: 2-digit year (e.g., 21 for 2021)

Months:

• MMMM: Full month name (e.g., January, February)

• MMM: Short month name (e.g., Jan, Feb)

• MM: Month as a 2-digit number (01 for January)

• M: Month as a number (1 for January)

Days:

• DD: Day of the month as a 2-digit number (e.g., 09)

• D: Day of the month as a number (e.g., 9)

• dddd: Full day name (e.g., Monday, Tuesday)

• ddd: Short day name (e.g., Mon, Tue)

Hours:

• HH: Hours (24-hour clock) as a 2-digit number

• H: Hours (24-hour clock) as a number

• hh: Hours (12-hour clock) as a 2-digit number

• h: Hours (12-hour clock) as a number

Minutes:

• mm: Minutes as a 2-digit number

• m: Minutes as a number

Seconds:

• ss: Seconds as a 2-digit number

• s: Seconds as a number

AM/PM:

• A: AM/PM uppercase

• a: am/pm lowercase

Time Zone:

• Z: UTC offset (e.g., +07:00)

• ZZ: UTC offset in a compact format (e.g., +0700)

These symbols can be combined in any way to match the format of your input date string. For example:

• YYYY-MM-DD: Represents dates like "2021-03-14"

• dddd, MMMM Do YYYY, h:mm:ss a: Represents dates like "Sunday, March 14th 2021, 5:30:45 pm"

Remember, the format in parameter dateFormat1 should match the structure of date1 you're parsing, the same is also true for dateFormat2 and date2.

Output

Description	Output Type
Returns the difference in the date or datetime values based on the type of time interval(s) selected.	Number

Example

In this example, we will get the difference between 2 dates (in days) and print the result in the console.

Step

1. Drag a button component into the canvas and open the Action tab. Select the press event of the button and drag the Log.write function to the event flow.

2. Call the function DateTime.difference inside the Log.write function.

3. Sample parameters are shown in the picture below.

   

Result

1. The console will print the difference between the two dates passed.