Question

Given two DateTimes in C#, how can I display the difference in years and months?

I can do basic arithmatic on the timespan that comes from a simple subtraction but this won’t take into account the differing lengths of months, leap years etc.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Because the underlying representation is measured in 100-nanosecond ticks since 12:00 midnight, January 1, 1 A.D., a subtraction will handle leap years etc. quite correctly:

DateTime date1 = ... DateTime date2 = ...  // date2 must be after date1  TimeSpan difference = date2.Subtract(date1); DateTime age=new DateTime(tsAge.Ticks);   int years = age.Years - 1; int months = age.Month - 1;  Console.WriteLine('{0}Y, {1}M', years, months);