Get the time difference between two datetimes

Question

I know I can do anything and some more envolving Dates with momentjs. But embarrassingly, I'm having a hard time trying to do something that seems simple: geting the difference between 2 times.

Example:

var now  = "04/09/2013 15:00:00";
var then = "04/09/2013 14:20:30";

//expected result:
"00:39:30"

what I tried:

var now = moment("04/09/2013 15:00:00");
var then = moment("04/09/2013 14:20:30");

console.log(moment(moment.duration(now.diff(then))).format("hh:mm:ss"))
//outputs 10:39:30  

I do not understand what is that "10" there. I live in Brazil, so we are utc-0300 if that is relevant.

The result of moment.duration(now.diff(then)) is a duration with the correct internal values:

 days: 0
 hours: 0
 milliseconds: 0
 minutes: 39
 months: 0
 seconds: 30
 years: 0

So, I guess my question is: how to convert a momentjs Duration to a time interval? I sure can use

duration.get("hours") +":"+ duration.get("minutes") +:+ duration.get("seconds")

but i feel that there is something more elegant that I am completely missing.

update
looking closer, in the above example now is:

Tue Apr 09 2013 15:00:00 GMT-0300 (E. South America Standard Time)…}

and moment(moment.duration(now.diff(then))) is:

Wed Dec 31 1969 22:39:30 GMT-0200 (E. South America Daylight Time)…}

I am not sure why the second value is in Daylight Time (-0200)... but I am sure that i do not like dates :(

update 2

well, the value is -0200 probably because 31/12/1969 was a date where the daylight time was being used... so thats that.

Answer 1

When you call diff, moment.js calculates the difference in milliseconds. If the milliseconds is passed to duration, it is used to calculate duration which is correct. However. when you pass the same milliseconds to the moment(), it calculates the date that is milliseconds from(after) epoch/unix time that is January 1, 1970 (midnight UTC/GMT). That is why you get 1969 as the year together with wrong hour.

duration.get("hours") +":"+ duration.get("minutes") +":"+ duration.get("seconds")

So, I think this is how you should do it since moment.js does not offer format function for duration. Or you can write a simple wrapper to make it easier/prettier.

Answer 2

If we want only hh:mm:ss, we can use a function like that:

//param: duration in milliseconds
MillisecondsToTime: function(duration) {
    var seconds = parseInt((duration/1000)%60)
        , minutes = parseInt((duration/(1000*60))%60)
        , hours = parseInt((duration/(1000*60*60))%24)
        , days  = parseInt(duration/(1000*60*60*24));

    var hoursDays = parseInt(days*24);
    hours += hoursDays;
    hours = (hours < 10) ? "0" + hours : hours;
    minutes = (minutes < 10) ? "0" + minutes : minutes;
    seconds = (seconds < 10) ? "0" + seconds : seconds;
    return hours + ":" + minutes + ":" + seconds;
}

Answer 3

Instead of

Math.floor(duration.asHours()) + moment.utc(duration.asMilliseconds()).format(":mm:ss")

It's better to do

moment.utc(total.asMilliseconds()).format("HH:mm:ss");

Answer 4

var a = moment([2007, 0, 29]);
var b = moment([2007, 0, 28]);
a.diff(b, 'days') //[days, years, months, seconds, ...]
//Result 1 

Worked for me

See more in http://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/difference/

Answer 5

InTime=06:38,Outtime=15:40

 calTimeDifference(){
        this.start = dailyattendance.InTime.split(":");
        this.end = dailyattendance.OutTime.split(":");
        var time1 = ((parseInt(this.start[0]) * 60) + parseInt(this.start[1]))
        var time2 = ((parseInt(this.end[0]) * 60) + parseInt(this.end[1]));
        var time3 = ((time2 - time1) / 60);
        var timeHr = parseInt(""+time3);
        var  timeMin = ((time2 - time1) % 60);
    }

Answer 6

Your problem is in passing the result of moment.duration() back into moment() before formatting it; this results in moment() interpreting it as a time relative to the Unix epoch.

It doesn't give you exactly the format you're looking for, but

moment.duration(now.diff(then)).humanize()

would give you a useful format like "40 minutes". If you're really keen on that specific formatting, you'll have to build a new string yourself. A cheap way would be

[diff.asHours(), diff.minutes(), diff.seconds()].join(':')

where var diff = moment.duration(now.diff(then)). This doesn't give you the zero-padding on single digit values. For that, you might want to consider something like underscore.string - although it seems like a long way to go just for a few extra zeroes. :)