Skip to main content

Comparing two dates

Calculate the number of days between 2 dates

date2stamp () {
  date --utc --date "$1" +%s
}

dateDiff (){
  case $1 in
    -s)   sec=1;      shift;;
    -m)   sec=60;     shift;;
    -h)   sec=3600;   shift;;
    -d)   sec=86400;  shift;;
    *)    sec=86400;;
  esac
  dte1=$(date2stamp $1)
  dte2=$(date2stamp $2)
  diffSec=$((dte2-dte1))
  if ((diffSec < 0)); then abs=-1; else abs=1; fi
  echo $((diffSec/sec*abs))
}

# -s in sec. | -m in min. | -h in hours  | -d in days (default)
dateDiff -s "2006-10-01" "2006-10-32"
dateDiff -m "2006-10-01" "2006-10-32"
dateDiff -h "2006-10-01" "2006-10-32"
dateDiff -d "2006-10-01" "2006-10-32"
dateDiff  "2006-10-01" "2006-10-32"