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How do I get the time difference between two different dates variables, specifically in years, months and days using moment.js?

I found this method but I keep getting weird results. Sometimes the result is one month ahead so I added a subtract one months part to make the result correct, but when the difference between the two dates can be divided into whole years it then becomes a month behind, but then if I remove the subtract month part, it gets even more out of whack.

Also I would like to format it as "X Years, Y Months, Z days", but also can't figure out how to format it in such way.

var dateOne = new Date(2000,07,16);
var dateTwo = new Date (1990,07,16);
var updatedDate = moment(dateOne).format('ll');
   
var x = moment(dateOne, 'DD/MM/YYYY').diff(moment(dateTwo, 'DD/MM/YYYY'))
var y = moment.duration(x);
var why = moment(x).subtract(1, 'M');
var z = Math.floor(y.asYears()) + moment.utc(why).format('/MM/DD');
console.log(z);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.24.0/moment.min.js"></script>
VincenzoC
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Harper Creek
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  • Related [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13903897/javascript-return-number-of-days-hours-minutes-seconds-between-two-dates/32514236#32514236) – RienNeVaPlu͢s Feb 21 '19 at 05:01
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    You are doing something weird. For one thing, dates and durations are completely different things, you can't format a duration as a date. For another, the difference between those two is exactly 10 years: `moment(dateOne).diff(dateTwo, 'years', true)` – Amadan Feb 21 '19 at 05:11
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    There is no reason to include jQuery. *dateOne* is a Date object, so no need for the second argument in `moment(dateOne, 'DD/MM/YYYY')`. You can include moment.js as an external library using a CDN, e.g. `https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.24.0/moment.min.js` – RobG Feb 21 '19 at 06:01

3 Answers3

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Try this perhaps?

var firstDate = moment();
var secondDate = moment("2018-03-19");
var yearDiff = firstDate.diff(secondDate, "year");
var monthDiff = firstDate.diff(secondDate, "month");
var dayDiff = firstDate.diff(secondDate, "day");
console.log(yearDiff + " Years, " + monthDiff + " Months, " + dayDiff + " Days");

https://jsfiddle.net/px1brLdk/

Rudolf Lamprecht
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  • A good answer should explain why the OP has their issue and how your code fixes it. Also, you can post your code as a runnable snippet and include external libraries. If you do that, you'll find that the values are the total difference for each interval so on 2019-02-21 you'll get 0 years, 11 months, 339 days. – RobG Feb 21 '19 at 09:32
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As stated by others in the comments, you can't format a duration as a date and since dateOne and dateTwo are a Date objects, there is no need for the second argument in moment(dateOne, 'DD/MM/YYYY'), simply use moment(Date).

Moverover, please note that when you use new Date(year, monthIndex, day) monthIndex starts from 0, see MDN docs:

The argument monthIndex is 0-based. This means that January = 0 and December = 11.

You can use moment-duration-format plug-in to format momentjs duration according your needs, see format() docs on the plug-in page.

Here a live sample:

var dateOne = new Date(2000, 7, 16);
var dateTwo = new Date(1990, 7, 16);

var diff = moment(dateOne).diff(moment(dateTwo))
var dur = moment.duration(diff);
var result = dur.format();
console.log(result);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.24.0/moment.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment-duration-format/2.2.2/moment-duration-format.min.js"></script>
VincenzoC
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1

Moment is having a method called .diff() Use that one. https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/difference/

Tigran Asatryan
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