# Calculating the difference of to dates

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/calculating-the-difference-of-to-dates/111627>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 9, 2007, 10:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/calculating-the-difference-of-to-dates/111627 "2007-08-09T10:31:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jawosis](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@jawosis](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jawosis)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 10:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/calculating-the-difference-of-to-dates/111627/1 "2007-08-09T10:31:26Z")

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I want to calculate the difference (days, hours, minutes)  
between a given date out of a mysql database (2007-07-07, date) and  
the current date (Time.now).

How can I achieve this?

Thanx

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jawosis](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@jawosis](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jawosis)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/calculating-the-difference-of-to-dates/111627/2 "2007-08-09T11:27:32Z")

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On Thursday 09 August 2007 01:29:46 am Jochen K. wrote:

> I want to calculate the difference (days, hours, minutes)  
> between a given date out of a mysql database (2007-07-07, date) and  
> the current date (Time.now).
> 
> How can I achieve this?

ex:

require ‘parsedate’

sql\_time = Time.mktime(\*ParseDate.parsedate(“2007-07-07”))  
cur\_time = Time.now

difference = cur\_time - sql\_time # result will be in seconds

Hope that helps.