Calculating time difference in days between two dates

felix_w

Dear Rapidminer Community, 

 

I am struggling on a very simple problem. I am trying to calculate the difference in days between two dates. I know there is a function called "date_diff" in generate attributes but I dont know how to enter a correct date. 

 

No I don't have the two dates in seperate columns, I only have the date in the above format in one column and I know the end date (24.12.2016). 

 

E.g. I want to calculate the date difference between 25.08.2016 and 24.12.2016 (German date format). How do I enter a correct format like this in rapidminer in the date_diff function? 

 

Best regards

Felix

MartinLiebig

Hi @felix_w,

it works like that:

date_diff(dateAttribute,date_parse_custom("24.12.2016","dd.MM.yyyy"))

note that you can get the current timestamp with date_now().

 

Best,

Martin

Telcontar120

And just remember that date_diff function will return results in milliseconds so if you want to convert to another time unit (like days) you'll need to divide the result by the appropriate number.

felix_w

Thank you Martin! Having different date formats all around the world really sucks ^^ 

 

Best regards

Felix

MartinLiebig

Hi @felix_w,

right. But as long as you don't have DD-MM-YYYY and MM-DD-YYYY in ONE document/example set everything is good. And yes, this exists

 

Best,

Martin