StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>This is actually quite tricky. A different total number of days can result in the same result. For example:</p> <ul> <li><p>19th June 2008 to 19th June 2010 = 2 years, but also 365 * 2 days</p></li> <li><p>19th June 2006 to 19th June 2008 = 2 years, but also 365 + 366 days due to leap years</p></li> </ul> <p>You may well want to subtract years until you get to the point where you've got two dates which are less than a year apart. Then subtract months until you get to the point where you've got two dates which are less than a month apart.</p> <p>Further confusion: subtracting (or adding) months is tricky when you might start with a date of "30th March" - what's a month earlier than that?</p> <p>Even further confusion (<em>may</em> not be relevant): even a day isn't always 24 hours. Daylight saving anyone?</p> <p>Even further confusion (almost certainly <em>not</em> relevant): even a minute isn't always 60 seconds. Leap seconds are highly confusing...</p> <p>I don't have the time to work out the exact right way of doing this right now - this answer is mostly to raise the fact that it's not nearly as simple as it might sound.</p> <p>EDIT: Unfortunately I'm not going to have enough time to answer this fully. I would suggest you start off by defining a struct representing a <code>Period</code>:</p> <pre><code>public struct Period { private readonly int days; public int Days { get { return days; } } private readonly int months; public int Months { get { return months; } } private readonly int years; public int Years { get { return years; } } public Period(int years, int months, int days) { this.years = years; this.months = months; this.days = days; } public Period WithDays(int newDays) { return new Period(years, months, newDays); } public Period WithMonths(int newMonths) { return new Period(years, newMonths, days); } public Period WithYears(int newYears) { return new Period(newYears, months, days); } public static DateTime operator +(DateTime date, Period period) { // TODO: Implement this! } public static Period Difference(DateTime first, DateTime second) { // TODO: Implement this! } } </code></pre> <p>I suggest you implement the + operator first, which should inform the <code>Difference</code> method - you should make sure that <code>first + (Period.Difference(first, second)) == second</code> for all <code>first</code>/<code>second</code> values.</p> <p>Start with writing a whole slew of unit tests - initially "easy" cases, then move on to tricky ones involving leap years. I know the normal approach is to write one test at a time, but I'd personally brainstorm a bunch of them before you start any implementation work.</p> <p>Allow yourself a day to implement this properly. It's tricky stuff.</p> <p>Note that I've omitted weeks here - that value at least is easy, because it's always 7 days. So given a (positive) period, you'd have:</p> <pre><code>int years = period.Years; int months = period.Months; int weeks = period.Days / 7; int daysWithinWeek = period.Days % 7; </code></pre> <p>(I suggest you avoid even thinking about negative periods - make sure everything is positive, all the time.)</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload