DATEDIFF()

DATEDIFF() is a function found in SQL Server and MySQL that calculates and returns the difference between two date values.

SQL Server Syntax

DATEDIFF(datePart, date1, date2)

The DATEDIFF() function in SQL Server has three required parameters:

• datePart is the part of the date to return. It can be one of the following formats:
  • Year: year, yyyy, yy
  • Quarter: quarter, qq, q
  • Week: week, ww, wk
  • Weekday: weekday, dw, w
  • Second: second, ss, s
  • Month: month, mm, m
  • Minute: minute, mi, n
  • Millisecond: millisecond, ms
  • Hour: hour, hh
  • Day of Year: dayofyear
  • Day: day, dy, y
• date1 and date2 are the dates to compare. It can be in several formats, one being the yyyy/mm/dd format.

Example 1

The following example calculates the difference in months between 2020/05/18 and 2022/05/18:

SELECT DATEDIFF(month, '2020/05/18', '2022/05/18'); /* Output: 24 */

Example 2

The following example returns the difference in seconds between 2021/09/30 08:22:04 and 2021/09/30 08:25:06:

SELECT DATEDIFF(second, '2021/09/30 08:22:04', '2021/09/30 08:25:06'); /* Output: 182 */

MySQL Syntax

MySQL only requires two date parameters in the DATEDIFF() function and will return the number of days between date1 and date2.

DATEDIFF(date1, date2)

Example

The following example returns the difference in days between 2019-07-05 and 2018-12-24:

SELECT DATEDIFF("2019-07-05", "2018-12-24"); /* Output: 193 */