DATEDIF results

[Paella1]

I would have thought the result to:

=DATEDIF("30/5/2009","30/6/2009","md")

... would be 1, given that there is 1 month and 1 day between these dates.

But the formula returns zero. Am I missing something? If not, can anyone suggest a workaround?

 

[sanrv1f]

try this

=DATEDIF("30/5/2009","30/6/2009","m")

also have a look at this,


http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.aspx

 

[Paella1]

Thanks sanrv1f, but I am interested in the day that seems to have gone missing, not the number of months.

 

[Peter_SSs]

... given that there is 1 month and 1 day between these dates.

How do you figure that?

Dates are notoriously tricky, but I would have thought it quite a reasonable interpretation that one month after 30 May is 30 June

 

[Paella1]

Spot on, Peter. DATEDIF uses the number of days in the first month as it's definition of a month. Hence DATEDIF will report that there is 1 month & 3 days between 28 Feb and 31 Mar, whereas if DATEDIF used the number of days in the second month, this would be 1 month exactly. I think I now understand why Microsoft doesn't like to talk abou DATEDIF.

Thanks for your help.

 

[asad]

I am using this formula

=DATEDIF(TODAY(),EDATE($B$19,12*(DATEDIF($B$19,TODAY(),"y")+1)),"m")&" Mths "&DATEDIF(TODAY(),EDATE($B$19,12*(DATEDIF($B$19,TODAY(),"y")+1)),"md")&" Days"

for calculating months and days to the next birthday from today. In this B19 is the date of birth for the person in question.
If it helps anybody, I will be happy that I was of some use to some body.

 

[Peter_SSs]

DATEDIF uses the number of days in the first month as it's definition of a month.

I think it just reasons that from 'x' day in any month to 'x' day in any other month is a whole number of months, irrespective of the number of days in any of the months.