DDIFF(1) User Commands DDIFF(1)NAMEddiff - Compute durations between dates and times
SYNOPSISddiff [OPTION]... DATE/TIME [DATE/TIME]...
DESCRIPTIONddiff 0.2.7
Compute duration from DATE/TIME (the reference date/time) to the other
DATE/TIMEs given and print the result as duration. If the other
DATE/TIMEs are omitted read them from stdin.
DATE/TIME can also be one of the following specials
- `now'
interpreted as the current (UTC) time stamp
- `time'
the time part of the current (UTC) time stamp
- `today'
the current date (according to UTC)
- `tomo[rrow]'
tomorrow's date (according to UTC)
- `y[ester]day'
yesterday's date (according to UTC)
Note: The output format of durations (specified via -f) takes all for‐
mat specifiers into account, i.e. specifying %M and %S for example
prints the duration in minutes and seconds, whereas specifying %S only
prints the duration in seconds.
See section `The refinement rule' in ddiff(1).
-h, --help
Print help and exit
-V, --version
Print version and exit
-q, --quiet
Suppress message about date/time and duration parser errors.
-f, --format=STRING
Output format. This can either be a specifier string (similar
to strftime()'s FMT) or the name of a calendar.
-i, --input-format=STRING
Input format, can be used multiple times. Each date/time will
be passed to the input format parsers in the order they are
given, if a date/time can be read successfully with a given
input format specifier string, that value will be used.
-e, --backslash-escapes
Enable interpretation of backslash escapes in the output and
input format specifier strings.
--from-zone=ZONE
Interpret dates on stdin or the command line as coming from the
time zone ZONE.
EXAMPLES
$ ddiff 2012-03-02 2012-03-02
0
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-02 2012-03-12
10
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-02 2012-04-12
41
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-12 2012-04-02
21
$
$ ddiff 2012-04-02 2012-03-12
-21
$
$ ddiff 2012-01-02 2012-02-29 -f '%dd'
58d
$
$ ddiff 2012-01-02 2012-02-29 -f '%ww %dd'
8w 2d
$
$ ddiff 10:00:00 10:00:00
0s
$
$ ddiff 10:01:00 10:06:00
300s
$
$ ddiff 10:06:00 10:01:00
-300s
$
$ ddiff 10:01:00 11:03:10 -f '%S sec'
3730 sec
$
$ ddiff 10:01:00 11:03:10 -f '%Mm %Ss'
62m 10s
$
$ ddiff 10:01:00 11:03:10 -f '%H:%M:%S'
1:2:10
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-02T10:04:00 2012-03-02T10:14:00
600s
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-02T10:04:00 2012-03-02T10:14:00 -f '%M min'
10 min
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-01T12:17:00 2012-03-02T14:00:00
92580s
$
$ ddiff 2012-03-01T12:17:00 2012-03-02T14:00:00 -f '%d days and %S
seconds'
1 days and 6180 seconds
$
FORMAT SPECS FOR DURATIONS
Unlike time or absolute instants, durations are reference-free, i.e.
the reference instant is not part of the duration. As a result dura‐
tions cannot be named, i.e. there is no naming scheme that applies to
all durations and all references unambiguously.
Consequently, none of the format specifiers for date/times makes sense
for durations in the literal sense. However, to aid intuitive usage we
reused format specifiers when they represent integral values and a
valid unit for duration, as follows:
Date specs:
%c Equivalent to %w
%d Durations in days
%F Equivalent to %dd with no resorting to bigger units
%m Durations in months
%w Durations in weeks
%y Equivalent to %Y
%Y Durations in years
%db Duration in business days
%dB Equivalent to %db
Time specs:
%H Durations in hours
%I Equivalent to %H
%M Durations in minutes
%S Durations in seconds
%T Equivalent to %Ss without resorting to bigger units
%rS Durations in real-life seconds, as in including leap seconds
%rT Equivalent to %rSs without resoring to bigger units
General specs:
%n A newline character
%t A tab character
%% A literal % character
Modifiers:
%r Modifier to turn units into real units
%0 Modifier to pad refined values with zeroes
%SPC Modifier to pad refined values with spaces
b Suffix, treat days as business days
THE REFINEMENT RULE
Durations are somewhat ambiguous when it comes to representing them
through format specifiers. Unlike format specifiers in point-in-time
representations duration specifiers can have an intra-line relation‐
ship.
So for instance a duration of 128 seconds might be presented through
"%S" as "128" but similarly through "%M:%S" as "02:08" (read two min‐
utes and 8 seconds).
There are several approaches to deal with this ambiguity. The ddiff
tool will follow, what we call, the refinement rule. That is, regard‐
less of the position of a format specifier, if it is a valid
@emph{refinement} of another specifier in the format string, then it
will only show the fractional value, i.e. the value in its natural
range with respect to the @emph{refined} specifier.
%Y possible refinements: %m, %w, %d
%m possible refinements: %w, %d
%w possible refinements: %d
%d possible refinements: %H, %M, %S
%H possible refinements: %M, %S
%M possible refinements: %S
The refinement alternatives are listed in order of precedence and they
are mutually exclusive. I.e. it is not possible to express a duration
in months and hours without having a "%d" specifier as well. On the
other hand in a chain of refinements inner elements are optional, i.e.
you can express a duration in weeks and hours because every day has 24
hours and hence there are 168 hours in a week.
Using the refinement rule keeps the format string dead simple, there's
no need for operators or a full-blown language to distinguish the range
ambiguity, which then would have to be escaped because they could also
in theory be part of the literal characters of the format string,
resulting more often than not in command lines that are hard to craft
and even harder to understand later on (e.g. if used in shell scripts).
The refinement rule ingeniously covers the 99% case but, unlike other
approaches, there's @emph{no} way to display two unrefined values in
the same format string, e.g. "'%w weeks (which is %d days)'".
AUTHOR
Written by Sebastian Freundt <freundt@fresse.org>
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to: https://github.com/hroptatyr/dateutils/issues
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for ddiff is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If
the info and ddiff programs are properly installed at your site, the
command
info (dateutils)ddiff
should give you access to the complete manual.
dateutils 0.2.7 January 2014 DDIFF(1)
