Calculate a duration

The SUBDUR operation can also be used to calculate a duration between:

Two dates
A date and a timestamp
Two times
A time and a timestamp
Two timestamps

The data types in factor 1 and factor 2 must be compatible types as specified above.

Factor 1 is required and must contain a Date, Time or Timestamp field, subfield, array, array element, constant or literal.

Factor 2 is required and must also contain a Date, Time or Timestamp field, array, array element, literal or constant.

The following duration codes are valid:

For two dates or a date and a timestamp: *DAYS (*D), *MONTHS (*M), and *YEARS (*Y)
For two times or a time and a timestamp: *SECONDS (*S), *MINUTES (*MN), and *HOURS (*H)
For two timestamps: *MSECONDS (*MS), *SECONDS (*S), *MINUTES (*MN), *HOURS (*H), *DAYS (*D), *MONTHS (*M), and *YEARS (*Y).

The result is a number of whole units, with any remainder discarded. For example, 61 minutes is equal to 1 hour and 59 minutes is equal to 0 hours.

The result field consists of two subfactors. The first is the name of a zero decimal numeric field, array or array element in which the result of the operation will be placed. The second subfactor contains a duration code denoting the type of duration. The result field will be negative if the date in factor 1 is earlier than the date in factor 2.

For more information on working with date-time fields see Date Operations.

Note:

Calculating a micro-second Duration (*mseconds) can exceed the 15 digit system limit for Durations and cause errors or truncation. This situation will occur when there is more than a 32 year and 9 month difference between the factor 1 and factor 2 entries.

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