Days between two dates

[Sirhc]

Hello

I am trying to calculate the days between two dates.

I have the following:

let date1 = new Date();

Then 2 days later, I set this:

let date2 = new Date();

I have tried:

let number_of_days = date2 - date1;

but I get this error: "The right-hand side of an arithmetic operation must be of type 'any', 'number', 'bigint' or an enum type."

[shrickus]

Subtracting date1 from date2 will return the number of milliseconds between the 2 dates:

> var d1 = new Date()
2024-01-08T05:19:13.228Z

> var d2 = new Date()
2024-01-08T05:19:25.253Z

> d2 - d1
12025

When you say "...two days later..." I would suspect that the original date1 variable no longer exists as a Date object.

[Sirhc]

@shrickus

 d2 - d1
12025

It seems to work, but why does it underline the date in red in the function and give me this:

The left-hand side of an arithmetic operation must be of type 'any', 'number', 'bigint' or an enum type

[shrickus]

Ah, so the editor is giving that warning -- but the value is still calculated correctly?

In that case, you can get the value of each date in millis and then subtract those:
date2.valueOf() - date1.valueOf()

or use the unary + operator to coerce those dates to integers, like this:
+date2 - +date1 (although the editor's syntax checker may not like that either)

[Sirhc]

Editor didn't like the first solution, but the second one worked! Thanks!

[xx_Nexus_xx]

i use this in a function node

msg.payload = dateToHowManyAgo(msg.payload)

return msg;


function dateToHowManyAgo(stringDate) {
    var currDate = new Date();
    var diffMs = currDate.getTime() - new Date(stringDate).getTime();
    var sec = diffMs / 1000;
    if (sec < 60)
        return parseInt(sec) + ' second' + (parseInt(sec) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
    var min = sec / 60;
    if (min < 60)
        return parseInt(min) + ' minute' + (parseInt(min) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
    var h = min / 60;
    if (h < 24)
        return parseInt(h) + ' hour' + (parseInt(h) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
    var d = h / 24;
    if (d < 30)
        return parseInt(d) + ' day' + (parseInt(d) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
    var m = d / 30;
    if (m < 12)
        return parseInt(m) + ' month' + (parseInt(m) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
    var y = m / 12;
    return parseInt(y) + ' year' + (parseInt(y) > 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ago';
}