paystub problem, datediff (vb.net)

[double kanon]

hi i am having trouble with this paystub program i am working on. so the console is supposed to ask for the start time and end time then calculate the pay with the rate given.

How can i enter the start and end times as time and not a double.
i dimmed them as date but then i dont know how to find the time difference between the two times. am i supposed to use datediff? and if so how does datediff work cause i cant seem to get datediff to work.

thanks a lot

[Plater]

How are you reading in the date/times?
They probably come in as a string?
Use it to create/populate DateTime objects.
Then use operators on them to produce a TimeSpan object.
you should be able to do what you need with a TimeSpan object

[double kanon]

im only using times like 10:35 am till 4:30 pm, then i want a function that would be able to find the difference between the two times in hours. does timespan do this because i have never used it before.

[Plater]

Yup. Create your DateTime objects and then subtract one from the other and cast it to a TimeSpan object.

[double kanon]

would you by anychance have an example of this because i have never worked with datetime or timespan before.

thanks

[Plater]

It's in C#, but conceptually it will be the same
[code=c#]
DateTime Start = new DateTime(2008, 11, 25, 12, 20, 00);
DateTime End = DateTime.Now;
TimeSpan t = (End - Start);
double hours = t.TotalHours;//The whole time expressed as whole and fractional hours
[/code]

So if you used a start time of 2:30pm and an endtime of 4:00pm (instead of my example times), you would get 1.5 as the value for hours

[double kanon]

ok well i tried using wat you put but i still cant figure it out. so then i tryed this out:

Public Sub Main()   
       Dim start as date
	Dim finish as date
	Dim hours as double
	Console.writeline("Enter employee start time")
        start = CDate(console.readline())
        Console.writeline("Enter employee end time")
        finish = CDate(console.readline())
        hours = datediff("h", start, finish)
        console.writeline("{0}", start)
        console.writeline("{0}", finish)
        console.writeline("{0}", hours)
    End Sub

but it wouldnt work either

[Plater]

Let me attempt to fix a few things to make them use .NET and not outdated VB
[code=vbnet]
Public Sub Main()
Dim start as DateTime
Dim finish as DateTime
Dim hours as double
Console.writeli ne("Enter employee start time")
start = DateTime.Parse( console.readlin e())
Console.writeli ne("Enter employee end time")
finish = DateTime.Parse( console.readlin e())
hours = ((TimeSpan)(fin ish-start)).TotalHo urs
console.writeli ne("{0}", start)
console.writeli ne("{0}", finish)
console.writeli ne("{0}", hours)
End Sub
[/code]

What made your code not work? Was an exception thrown?

[double kanon]

ok so i tryed this

Module time_difference                 
	Public Sub Main()   
		Dim start as DateTime
		Dim finish as DateTime
		Dim hours as double
		Console.writeline("Enter employee start time")
		start = DateTime.Parse(console.readline()) 
               Console.writeline("Enter employee end time")
		finish = DateTime.Parse(console.readline())         
		hours = ((TimeSpan)(finish-start)).TotalHours
               console.writeline("{0}", start)
               console.writeline("{0}", finish)
              console.writeline("{0}", hours)
    	End Sub
End Module

and i get
C:\MSCI 121\timeconvers ion2.vb(15) : error BC30108: 'TimeSpan' is a type and can not be used as an expression.

hours = ((TimeSpan)(fin ish-start)).TotalHo urs
~~~~~~~~

[rpicilli]

Hi there.

Try this code. After understand what it does, modify to your need

        Dim dInit As New DateTime
        Dim dEnd As New DateTime
        Dim hOurs As New TimeSpan

        dInit = CType("11/11/2007 10:00", Date)
        dEnd = CType("11/11/2007 11:38", Date)

        hOurs = dEnd - dInit

        MessageBox.Show(hOurs.ToString)

[Plater]

(TimeSpan)() is C#'s way of type casting. I think you use Convert or CTYPE or some other wierd thing in VB.

[double kanon]

hey guys thanks a lot.. so now i got something that works and this is the code for it

	Public Sub Main()   
		Dim start as DateTime
		Dim finish as DateTime
		Dim hours as Timespan
		Console.writeline("Enter employee start time")
		start = DateTime.Parse(console.readline()) 
        Console.writeline("Enter employee end time")
		finish = DateTime.Parse(console.readline())         
		hours = finish - start
        console.writeline("{0}", start)
        console.writeline("{0}", finish)
        console.writeline("{0}", hours)
    End Sub

but when i get my output it looks like this:
Enter employee start time
10:35
Enter employee end time
11:35
11/26/2008 10:35:00 AM
11/26/2008 11:35:00 AM
01:00:00

is there a way of not including the date in the output, so i want only the time.
and also how can i convert the time difference in decimal number of hours and not an actual time

thanks

[Plater]

the .ToString() of DateTime object takes a string where you can say like "hh:mm:ss zz" for like "10:35 pm" (Check MSDN for exact format string as i might have it wrong)

Also, when you print out the hours variable, consider printing out only the TotalHours property of it, as it's possible you will have over 24hour time period (maybe not in your application, but its important to make sure you are specific, just in case) and you want to make sure its only expressed in hours

[double kanon]

ok i got the time difference in hours by doing this
diff = datediff("n", start, finish) ---> this gives me number of minutes so i only have to divide by 60
timediff = diff/60

ok now i have a different problem, i want to read the inputs from a file now with streamreader but the file would look like this

name rate starttime1 endtime1 starttime2 endtime2 starttime3 endtime3 ...
name rate starttime1 endtime1 starttime2 endtime2 starttime3 endtime3 ...
name rate starttime1 endtime1 starttime2 endtime2 starttime3 endtime3 ...
...
...

is there anyway of doing this? so it would be different employee's name and rates and the hours they worked that week

thanks

[rpicilli]

Did you try the code I've send you?

Rpicilli