Question

Having two strings (start and end time) in such form “16:30”, “02:13” I want to compare them and check if the gap is greater than 5 mins.

How can this be achieved in Javascript in an easy way?

Answer 1

function parseTime(time) {
  var timeArray = time.split(/:/);
  // Using Jan 1st, 2010 as a "base date". Any other date should work.
  return new Date(2010, 0, 1, +timeArray[0], +timeArray[1], 0);
}

var diff = Math.abs(parseTime("16:30").getTime() - parseTime("02:13").getTime());
if (diff > 5 * 60 * 1000) { // Difference is in milliseconds
  alert("More that 5 mins.");
}

Do you need to wrap over midnight? Then this is more difficult. For example, 23:59 and 00:01 will produce a difference of 23 hours 58 minutes and not 2 minutes.

If that’s the case you need to define your case more closely.