Days between, awk?

[Neil Edwards]

Hello awk experts,

Anybody know of an easy way to count the number of days between two dates like 7/1/2002 and 6/1/2001? I searched the forums and A. Clay's caljd.sh but it wants separate variables for month, day, and year. I was hoping someone already had an awk program to split the dates apart. Awk is not one of my strongpoints.

Thanks in advance,
Neil

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Check out A. Clay's newest version of caljd.sh (and caljd.pl) at this thread.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x1fb33a7b3682d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

This one allows you to specify a date as one string. Hopefully this'll help you.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Neil:

Patrick pointed you to the latest version, 2.1, which will do this internally. If you had asked this a couple of weeks ago the answer would have been a simple awk script but due to a 'customer' request; your all set. Unfortunately your usage to not make my examples list. I might add it later after I see a few more typical date questions.

This should fix you, if and only if, you use caljd.sh (or caljd.pl) version 2.1.
---------------------------------------

D1="7/1/2002"
D2="6/1/2001"
DIFF=$(( $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D1} - $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D2}) ))
echo "Days = ${DIFF}"

If I counted those pesky paren's correctly, that shoulf fix you.

Regards, Clay

[Patrick Wallek]

I think Clay missed a close paren in there.

The line:
DIFF=$(( $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D1} - $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D2}) ))

Should be (I think):
DIFF=$(( $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D1}) - $(caljd.sh -S "/" -c ${D2}) ))

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again:

I just realized that your question was a bit ambiguous in that 7/1/2002 might be July 1, 2002 or it might be 7 January, 2002 especially if you was one of them folks what lives way over yonder. If that is the case then you need to add the -e (European) option to both caljd.sh calls.

Regards and no more points for this, Clay

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again:

Patrick is indeed correct. My advanced one-finger hunt-and-peck method has failed me once again. That there boy is smarter than I am.

[Patrick Wallek]

I don't think I'd go that far Clay, but thanks for the compliment anyway.

(No points for this)

[Neil Edwards]

Thanks!!! You guys are great. I had an answer in under 5 minutes!!!

Clay, I had your earlier version but this date "sledgehammer" is great. I especially liked your examples section.

Thanks again to both of you,
Neil