Difference in months between two dates

Question

How to calculate the difference in months between two dates in C#?

Is there is equivalent of VB's DateDiff() method in C#. I need to find difference in months between two dates that are years apart. The documentation says that I can use TimeSpan like:

TimeSpan ts = date1 - date2;

but this gives me data in Days. I don't want to divide this number by 30 because not every month is 30 days and since the two operand values are quite apart from each other, I am afraid dividing by 30 might give me a wrong value.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

To be able to calculate the difference between 2 dates in months is a perfectly logical thing to do, and is needed in many business applications. The several coders here who have provided comments such as - what's the difference in months between "May 1,2010" and "June 16,2010, what's the difference in months between 31 December 2010 and 1 Jan 2011? -- have failed to understand the very basics of business applications.

Here is the answer to the above 2 comments - The number of months between 1-may-2010 and 16-jun-2010 is 1 month, the number of months between 31-dec-2010 and 1-jan-2011 is 0. It would be very foolish to calculate them as 1.5 months and 1 second, as the coders above have suggested.

People who have worked on credit card, mortgage processing, tax processing, rent processing, monthly interest calculations and a vast variety of other business solutions would agree.

Problem is that such a function is not included in C# or VB.NET for that matter. Datediff only takes into account years or the month component, so is actually useless.

Here are some real-life examples of where you need to and correctly can calculate months:

You lived in a short-term rental from 18-feb to 23-aug. How many months did you stay there? The answer is a simple - 6 months

You have a bank acount where interest is calculated and paid at the end of every month. You deposit money on 10-jun and take it out 29-oct (same year). How many months do you get interest for? Very simple answer- 4 months (again the extra days do not matter)

In business applications, most of the time, when you need to calculate months, it is because you need to know 'full' months based on how humans calculate time; not based on some abstract/irrelevant thoughts.

Answer 2

Public Class ClassDateOperation
    Private prop_DifferenceInDay As Integer
    Private prop_DifferenceInMonth As Integer
    Private prop_DifferenceInYear As Integer


    Public Function DayMonthYearFromTwoDate(ByVal DateStart As Date, ByVal DateEnd As Date) As ClassDateOperation
        Dim differenceInDay As Integer
        Dim differenceInMonth As Integer
        Dim differenceInYear As Integer
        Dim myDate As Date

        DateEnd = DateEnd.AddDays(1)

        differenceInYear = DateEnd.Year - DateStart.Year

        If DateStart.Month <= DateEnd.Month Then
            differenceInMonth = DateEnd.Month - DateStart.Month
        Else
            differenceInYear -= 1
            differenceInMonth = (12 - DateStart.Month) + DateEnd.Month
        End If


        If DateStart.Day <= DateEnd.Day Then
            differenceInDay = DateEnd.Day - DateStart.Day
        Else

            myDate = CDate("01/" & DateStart.AddMonths(1).Month & "/" & DateStart.Year).AddDays(-1)
            If differenceInMonth <> 0 Then
                differenceInMonth -= 1
            Else
                differenceInMonth = 11
                differenceInYear -= 1
            End If

            differenceInDay = myDate.Day - DateStart.Day + DateEnd.Day

        End If

        prop_DifferenceInDay = differenceInDay
        prop_DifferenceInMonth = differenceInMonth
        prop_DifferenceInYear = differenceInYear

        Return Me
    End Function

    Public ReadOnly Property DifferenceInDay() As Integer
        Get
            Return prop_DifferenceInDay
        End Get
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property DifferenceInMonth As Integer
        Get
            Return prop_DifferenceInMonth
        End Get
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property DifferenceInYear As Integer
        Get
            Return prop_DifferenceInYear
        End Get
    End Property

End Class

Answer 3

I checked the usage of this method in VB.NET via MSDN and it seems that it has a lot of usages. There is no such a built-in method in C#. (Even it's not a good idea) you can call VB's in C#.

1. Add Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll to your project as a reference
2. use Microsoft.VisualBasic.DateAndTime.DateDiff in your code

Answer 4

I just needed something simple to cater for e.g. employment dates where only the month/year is entered, so wanted distinct years and months worked in. This is what I use, here for usefullness only

public static YearsMonths YearMonthDiff(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {
    int monthDiff = ((endDate.Year * 12) + endDate.Month) - ((startDate.Year * 12) + startDate.Month) + 1;
    int years = (int)Math.Floor((decimal) (monthDiff / 12));
    int months = monthDiff % 12;
    return new YearsMonths {
        TotalMonths = monthDiff,
            Years = years,
            Months = months
    };
}

.NET Fiddle

Answer 5

Here's a much more concise solution using VB.Net DateDiff for Year, Month, Day only. You can load the DateDiff library in C# as well.

date1 must be <= date2

VB.NET

Dim date1 = Now.AddDays(-2000)
Dim date2 = Now
Dim diffYears = DateDiff(DateInterval.Year, date1, date2) - If(date1.DayOfYear > date2.DayOfYear, 1, 0)
Dim diffMonths = DateDiff(DateInterval.Month, date1, date2) - diffYears * 12 - If(date1.Day > date2.Day, 1, 0)
Dim diffDays = If(date2.Day >= date1.Day, date2.Day - date1.Day, date2.Day + (Date.DaysInMonth(date1.Year, date1.Month) - date1.Day))

C#

DateTime date1 = Now.AddDays(-2000);
DateTime date2 = Now;
int diffYears = DateDiff(DateInterval.Year, date1, date2) - date1.DayOfYear > date2.DayOfYear ? 1 : 0;
int diffMonths = DateDiff(DateInterval.Month, date1, date2) - diffYears * 12 - date1.Day > date2.Day ? 1 : 0;
int diffDays = date2.Day >= date1.Day ? date2.Day - date1.Day : date2.Day + (System.DateTime.DaysInMonth(date1.Year, date1.Month) - date1.Day);

Answer 6

This is from my own library, will return the difference of months between two dates.

public static int MonthDiff(DateTime d1, DateTime d2)
{
    int retVal = 0;

    // Calculate the number of years represented and multiply by 12
    // Substract the month number from the total
    // Substract the difference of the second month and 12 from the total
    retVal = (d1.Year - d2.Year) * 12;
    retVal = retVal - d1.Month;
    retVal = retVal - (12 - d2.Month);

    return retVal;
}