ActionScript 3.0 + Calculate timespan between two dates?

Question

In ActionScript 3.0, is there an automatic way to calculate the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds between two specified dates?

Basicly, what I need is the ActionScript equivalent of the .NET Timespan class.

Any idea?

Answer 1

You can covert the two date times into milliseconds since the epoch, perform your math and then use the resultant milliseconds to calculate these higher timespan numbers.

var someDate:Date = new Date(...);
var anotherDate:Date = new Date(...);
var millisecondDifference:int = anotherDate.valueOf() - someDate.valueOf();
var seconds:int = millisecondDifference / 1000;
....

The LiveDocs are useful for this type of thing too. Sorry if the ActionScript is a bit off, but it has been a while.

I'd also recommend creating a set of static class methods that can perform these operations if you're doing a lot of this type of math. Sadly, this basic functionality doesn't really exist in the standard APIs.

Answer 2

There is no automatic way of doing this. The best you can achieve with the supplied classes is to fetch date1.time and date2.time, to give the number of milliseconds since 1st Jan 1970 for two numbers. You can then work out the number of milliseconds between them. With some basic maths, you can then derive the seconds, hours, days etc.

Answer 3

For the sake of accuracy the above post by Russell is correct until you get to 25 days difference, then the number becomes too large for the int variable. Therefore declare the millisecondDifference:Number;

There may be some difference between the documented getTime() and valueOf(), but in effect I can't see it

Answer 4

I created an ActionScript TimeSpan class with a similar API to System.TimeSpan to fill that void, but there are differences due to the lack of operator overloading. You can use it like so:

TimeSpan.fromDates(later, earlier).totalDays;

Below is the code for the class (sorry for the big post - I won't include the Unit Tests ;)

/**
 * Represents an interval of time 
 */ 
public class TimeSpan
{
 private var _totalMilliseconds : Number;

 public function TimeSpan(milliseconds : Number)
 {
  _totalMilliseconds = Math.floor(milliseconds);
 }

 /**
  * Gets the number of whole days
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromHours(25), 
  *    totalHours will be 1.04, but hours will be 1 
  * @return A number representing the number of whole days in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get days() : int
 {
   return int(_totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_DAY);
 }

 /**
  * Gets the number of whole hours (excluding entire days)
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMinutes(1500), 
  *    totalHours will be 25, but hours will be 1 
  * @return A number representing the number of whole hours in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get hours() : int
 {
   return int(_totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_HOUR) % 24;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the number of whole minutes (excluding entire hours)
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(65500), 
  *    totalSeconds will be 65.5, but seconds will be 5 
  * @return A number representing the number of whole minutes in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get minutes() : int
 {
  return int(_totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_MINUTE) % 60; 
 }

 /**
  * Gets the number of whole seconds (excluding entire minutes)
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(65500), 
  *    totalSeconds will be 65.5, but seconds will be 5 
  * @return A number representing the number of whole seconds in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get seconds() : int
 {
  return int(_totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_SECOND) % 60;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the number of whole milliseconds (excluding entire seconds)
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(2123), 
  *    totalMilliseconds will be 2001, but milliseconds will be 123 
  * @return A number representing the number of whole milliseconds in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get milliseconds() : int
 {
  return int(_totalMilliseconds) % 1000;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the total number of days.
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromHours(25), 
  *    totalHours will be 1.04, but hours will be 1 
  * @return A number representing the total number of days in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get totalDays() : Number
 {
  return _totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_DAY;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the total number of hours.
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMinutes(1500), 
  *    totalHours will be 25, but hours will be 1 
  * @return A number representing the total number of hours in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get totalHours() : Number
 {
  return _totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_HOUR;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the total number of minutes.
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(65500), 
  *    totalSeconds will be 65.5, but seconds will be 5 
  * @return A number representing the total number of minutes in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get totalMinutes() : Number
 {
  return _totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_MINUTE;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the total number of seconds.
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(65500), 
  *    totalSeconds will be 65.5, but seconds will be 5 
  * @return A number representing the total number of seconds in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get totalSeconds() : Number
 {
  return _totalMilliseconds / MILLISECONDS_IN_SECOND;
 }

 /**
  * Gets the total number of milliseconds.
  * 
  * @example In a TimeSpan created from TimeSpan.fromMilliseconds(2123), 
  *    totalMilliseconds will be 2001, but milliseconds will be 123 
  * @return A number representing the total number of milliseconds in the TimeSpan
  */
 public function get totalMilliseconds() : Number
 {
  return _totalMilliseconds;
 }

 /**
  * Adds the timespan represented by this instance to the date provided and returns a new date object.
  * @param date The date to add the timespan to
  * @return A new Date with the offseted time
  */  
 public function add(date : Date) : Date
 {
  var ret : Date = new Date(date.time);
  ret.milliseconds += totalMilliseconds;

  return ret;
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the different between two dates
  * 
  * Note that start can be after end, but it will result in negative values. 
  *  
  * @param start The start date of the timespan
  * @param end The end date of the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the difference between the dates
  * 
  */  
 public static function fromDates(start : Date, end : Date) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(end.time - start.time);
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the specified number of milliseconds
  * @param milliseconds The number of milliseconds in the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the specified value
  */  
 public static function fromMilliseconds(milliseconds : Number) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(milliseconds);
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the specified number of seconds
  * @param seconds The number of seconds in the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the specified value
  */ 
 public static function fromSeconds(seconds : Number) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(seconds * MILLISECONDS_IN_SECOND);
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the specified number of minutes
  * @param minutes The number of minutes in the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the specified value
  */ 
 public static function fromMinutes(minutes : Number) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(minutes * MILLISECONDS_IN_MINUTE);
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the specified number of hours
  * @param hours The number of hours in the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the specified value
  */ 
 public static function fromHours(hours : Number) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(hours * MILLISECONDS_IN_HOUR);
 }

 /**
  * Creates a TimeSpan from the specified number of days
  * @param days The number of days in the timespan
  * @return A TimeSpan that represents the specified value
  */ 
 public static function fromDays(days : Number) : TimeSpan
 {
  return new TimeSpan(days * MILLISECONDS_IN_DAY);
 }

 /**
  * The number of milliseconds in one day
  */ 
 public static const MILLISECONDS_IN_DAY : Number = 86400000;

 /**
  * The number of milliseconds in one hour
  */ 
 public static const MILLISECONDS_IN_HOUR : Number = 3600000;

 /**
  * The number of milliseconds in one minute
  */ 
 public static const MILLISECONDS_IN_MINUTE : Number = 60000;

 /**
  * The number of milliseconds in one second
  */ 
 public static const MILLISECONDS_IN_SECOND : Number = 1000;
}

Answer 5

ArgumentValidation is another class of Mr Szalays that does some checks to make sure each method has the right values to perform it's tasks without throwing unrecognisable errors. They are non-essential to get the TimeSpan class working so you could just comment them out and the class will work correctly.

Rich may post the Argument validation class on here as well as it's very handy but i'll leave that down to him ;P

Answer 6

Take a look at http://aplikasiflash.blogspot.com/ There is DateHelper and MathParser... tested

Answer 7

I've ported RoR function distance_of_time_in_words on AS3 and added it to TimeSpan class. it is available on my blog http://denisvolokh.blogspot.com/2010/04/distanceoftimeinwords-on-as3.html