Excel date/time difference

Question

I would like to work out the current time since a date and time specified.

If the specified data is : 19/01/2013 16:44:00
and now the time is : 19/01/2013 16:45:00

the difference is 0 years 0 months 0 days 0 hours 1 minute 0 seconds

This can be done easily just by taking the current time and minus the previous time and format it but this is hard to crunch data so what I wish to do is break each date/time segment into its own cell

Let's say cell A1 has the previous time and cell A2 has the current time

Cells a5 trough f5 would contain 0 years 0 months 0 days 0 hours 1 minute 0 seconds

On a second note on this question is it possible to force the =NOW() to update every x seconds via VBA without interaction?

You should split this into two questions to avoid collision of answers of the different parts — JustinJDavies, Jan 30 '13 at 17:26

barry houdini · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-30T19:19:26.160

You can't use YEAR function to get year difference because that will give 1 year between 31st December 2012 and 1st Jan 2013 when there is only one day.....

....similarly you can have problems with MONTH and DAY (e.g. MONTH always returns a number between 1 and 12 whereas in this context you would only expect numbers between 0 and 11)

Try DATEDIF for the first 3 then HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND as Justin suggests

Assuming start date/time in A2 and end date/time in B2 try these formulas respectively for Years, Months, Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds

=DATEDIF(A2,B2-(MOD(A2,1)>MOD(B2,1)),"y")

=DATEDIF(A2,B2-(MOD(A2,1)>MOD(B2,1)),"ym")

=DATEDIF(A2,B2-(MOD(A2,1)>MOD(B2,1)),"md")

=HOUR(B2-A2)

=MINUTE(B2-A2)

=SECOND(B2-A2)

format all cells as general

You may get some discrepancies because of variable month/year lengths......

for =HOUR(B2-A2) =MINUTE(B2-A2) =SECOND(B2-A2) i am getting #NUM! — Jordan Trainor, Jan 30 '13 at 20:59
If you get #NUM! error that means the dates are the wrong way round, I was assuming that B2 was later than A2, if not switch to `=HOUR(A2-B2)` etc — barry houdini, Jan 30 '13 at 21:05

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

1

Use A5 = Year(A1)-Year(A2) etc.

Using

Year(...) Month(...) Day(...) Hour(...) Minute(...) Second(...)

For more details on creating a self-updating sheet based on a timer, look at these two posts and set a timer to execute the Worksheet.Calculate method.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Community

1
1

answered Jan 30 '13 at 17:29

JustinJDavies

2,663
4
30
52

i tried this with a1=30/01/2013 16:44:00 and a2 = 30/01/2013 18:34:35 and i get (days 0)(hours 2)(Minutes -10)(seconds 35) how would i fix this? – Jordan Trainor Jan 30 '13 at 18:35

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 24 '16 at 04:26

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
    DoDateA
End Sub

Sub DoDateA()
    Dim D1 As Date, D2 As Date, DC As Date, DS As Date
    Dim CA: CA = Array("", "yyyy", "m", "d", "h", "n", "s", "s")
    Dim Va%(7), Da(7) As Date, Ci%
    D1 = Now + Rnd() * 420  ' vary the  * factors for range of dates
    D2 = Now + Rnd() * 156
    If D1 > D2 Then
        [b4] = "Larger"
    Else
        [b4] = " smaller"
        DS = D1
        D1 = D2
        D2 = DS
    End If
    [d4] = D1
    [e4] = D2
    DC = D2
    For Ci = 1 To 6
        Va(Ci) = DateDiff(CA(Ci), DC, D1)
        DC = DateAdd(CA(Ci), Va(Ci), DC)
        Va(Ci + 1) = DateDiff(CA(Ci + 1), DC, D1)
        If Va(Ci + 1) < 0 Then  ' added too much
            Va(Ci) = Va(Ci) - 1
            DC = DateAdd(CA(Ci), -1, DC)
            Cells(9, Ci + 3) = Va(Ci + 1)
            Cells(8, Ci + 3) = Format(DC, "yyyy:mm:dd hh:mm:ss")
        End If
        Da(Ci) = DC
        Cells(5, Ci + 3) = CA(Ci)
        Cells(6, Ci + 3) = Va(Ci)
        Cells(7, Ci + 3) = Format(Da(Ci), "yyyy:mm:dd hh:mm:ss")
        Cells(10, Ci + 3) = DateDiff(CA(Ci), D2, D1)
    Next Ci
End Sub

Excel date/time difference

3 Answers3

Linked