How do I get the diff between two Date&Time fields and show as Decimal Hrs?

Question

I have Date and Time Start "DT1SI have Date and Time End  "DT1EI want to DT1E - DT1S and show the result as decimal hours rounded to 1 decimal point as in XX.xI am using Adobe Pro for Mac on my MacBook Pro using High Sierra.I have it done on my Excel version of this form, but I want to create a Fillable PDF version of the form and I have searched high and low on how do do this in PDF.In Excel it is simply =Round((DT1E-DT1S)*24,1) with the result field formatted as a number to 1 decimal place.Hope someone can make it that easy for me in PDF using "Simplified Field Notation" or last but not least "Custom Calculation Script".

gkaiseril · Accepted Answer

If you work long enough with computers you will have learned several languages that do not stand the test of time.

The following script will compute the difference in minutes and then display the result in hours.

function String2Min(cFormat, cString){

var oDate = util.scand(cFormat, cString); // convert string to Date object;

return Math.floor(oDate.getTime() / (1000 * 60)); // return minutes for Date object;

}

var cDT1S = this.getField("DT1S").value; // get start field value;

var cDT1E = this.getField("DT1E").value; // get end field value;

// covert date strings to minutes and comput difference;

var nDiff = String2Min("mm/dd/yyyy h:MM tt", cDT1E) - String2Min("mm/dd/yyyy h:MM tt", cDT1S);

// format result as hours and set field value;

event.value = Number(util.printf("%,104.1f", (nDiff / 60)));

With some additional changes and naming the output field field in a systematic method one could even compute the input fields do there is no need to edit the scripts when coping the code or the output field.

gkaiseril · Answer

Since one needs to use various properties and methods of the JavaScript Date object, one cannot use the simplified field notation which can only use field values and constants. You will also need to write special code for converting date strings to the JavaScript date object and the rounding of floating point values to a specified number of decimal points. You will also need to make a decision if you need to set a field's value to the rounded value or you just want to change the displayed value of the field.

I and others have posted several times about calculating time sheets and date time intervals.

Acrobat does not supply as many functions as Excel, but allows users to write their own custom functions as needed.

You will need to convert your date strings to JavaScript date objects. From the JavaScript date object one can obtain the number of milliseconds from a common Epoch date, use the "util.scand" method. These values can be converted to hours using simple division and the result can be rounded by using the "util.printf" method.. Once one has the number of hours from the Epoch date, the difference will provide the elapsed time. Since many of steps will be performed more than once, you may want to write your own functions for these steps so one only needs to provide the specific data to be accessed or converted to get a specific result. Using the JavaScript date object will automatically adjust for the intervals that include the changes due to Daylight Savings Time.

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