Subtracting date fields in lotus notes

Question

I need to subtract two date fields in order to get the number of days as the difference. I tried subtracting them in the "Default Value" section of the Field. But the message Incorrect Data Type for operator or @function appears on the screen. The field was defined as an editable/number field.

Can you please advice on how to properly solve this problem using the @function in the "default value" section of the field property?

Thank you for kind help.

Answer 1

You can find the number of seconds between two dates by subtracting them. Then get the days by dividing by 86400 (seconds in a day). No @function is required.

Answer 2

I tried to simulate your problem, and I think I know what your issue is. In fact you almost have it working. Use this formula in the computed "DaysElapsed" field.

@If(@IsTime(Date1) & @IsTime(Date2);(Date2-date1)/86400;0);

If the date fields are blank whilst in edit mode, the calculation will fail because a blank value is not a "date", they are blank values which cannot have mathematical functions performed on them. So, a bit of type checking should fix it. I have used a default of zero whilst the values cannot be calculated.