Time interval¶

date & time

Calculates the duration of a time interval between two dates (datetimes/timestamps).

The dates can be specified either as two datetime columns (in which case the second is subtracted from the first), or as a single column and a reference date provided as a parameter (see since or until in parameters below). If only one column is provided as input, one of since or until must be specified as a reference date.

Usage¶

The following are the step's expected inputs and outputs and their specific types.

Step signature

time_interval(
    date1: date,
    *date2: date, 
    {
        "param": value
    }
) -> (interval: number)

where the object {"param": value} is optional in most cases and if present may contain any of the parameters described in the corresponding section below.

Example¶

To get the positive number of hours since the last login of a user as of now:

Example call (in recipe editor)

time_interval(ds.last_login, {
  "unit": "hours",
  "until": "now",
}) -> (ds.hours_elapsed)

More examples

Using since instead would lead to the same result but with negative hours:

Example call (in recipe editor)

time_interval(ds.last_login, {
  "unit": "hours",
  "since": "now",
}) -> (ds.hours_ago)

Inputs¶

date1: column:date

A column of datetimes.

*date2: column:date

An (optional) column of datetimes subtracted from the first.

Outputs¶

interval: column:number

The calculated interval in selected units.

Parameters¶

unit: string = "days"

The unit used to measure the duration of the intervals. Allowed unit specifiers are the codes and corresponding names in this table. If the full unit name is used, it can be spelled in any case as well as singular or plural. I.e. all of the following are equivalent: 'D', 'day', 'days', 'Day', 'Days'.

Must be one of: "Y", "year", "Year", "years", "Years", "M", "month", "Month", "months", "Months", "W", "week", "Week", "weeks", "Weeks", "D", "day", "Day", "days", "Days", "h", "hour", "Hour", "hours", "Hours", "m", "minute", "Minute", "minutes", "Minutes", "s", "second", "Second", "seconds", "Seconds", "ms", "millisecond", "Millisecond", "milliseconds", "Milliseconds", "us", "microsecond", "Microsecond", "microseconds", "Microseconds", "ns", "nanosecond", "Nanosecond", "nanoseconds", "Nanoseconds", "ps", "picosecond", "Picosecond", "picoseconds", "Picoseconds", "fs", "femtosecond", "Femtosecond", "femtoseconds", "Femtoseconds", "as", "attosecond", "Attosecond", "attoseconds", "Attoseconds"

absolute: boolean = False

Return type of interval duration. Whether the interval duration should always be returned as positive, independent of whether date1 occurred before or after date2

since: string = "None"

Date start reference for intervals. If only one column is specified as input, a reference date relative to which the intervals will be calculated. The result will be date1 - since. I.e. intervals will be positive if dates in the column are more recent than the reference date (and negative otherwise). The date must be either be a valid date string (preferrable month-first, e.g. "2021-12-31"), or any of the constants "today", "now", "tomorrow", "yesterday".

until: string = "None"

Date ending reference for intervals. If only one column is specified as input, a reference date relative to which the intervals will be calculated. The result will be until - date1. I.e. intervals will be positive if the reference date is more recent than the dates in the column (and negative otherwise). The date must be either be a valid date string (preferrable month-first, e.g. "2021-12-31"), or any of the constants "today", "now", "tomorrow", "yesterday".