How to calculate time difference (minutes) between two datetime fields

[mdavidson]

I have two datetime fields and want to calculate the difference in minutes between the two fields. I don't believe the DATDIF function will return minutes, will it? Is there another function that I can use? So far I haven't had any luck searching the SAS EG help or the web....

Thanks in advance.

[mdavidson]

Got it: INTCK('minute',field1,field2 )

[Doc_Duke · Accepted solution]

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@mdavidson wrote:
got it: INTCK('minute',field1,field2 )

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INTCK can give results that aren't what you want in all cases, as it counts from the beginning of the interval (see the Details section of the documentation). If your data are recorded to the minute, it won't matter. If your data are recorded to the second, it might.

As datetime variables are recorded in seconds, an alternative is to use the fact that there are 60 seconds in a minutes and just do the arithmetic directly

(datetime2 - datetime1)/60 provides minutes with decimal fractions.
FLOOR( (datetime2 - datetime1)/60 ) provides the whole minute durations.

For instance, 12:01:50 to 12:02:10 is 1 using INTCK, 0.333 using the decimal minutes, and 0 using the FLOOR version.

[Mantagon]

This is exactly what I wanted. Thanks very much!