Comparing two times

[changetires]

when comparing two different times why is 00:30 minutes giving me a number like .02083333333333333333 and 0:30 minutes from a vlookup table is giving me a number like .0208333333284827

whats up with that that is why my conditional formatting is a problem

ed

[Bob Phillips]

This is caused by the floating point arithmetic engine within Excel, it is
limited in its precision (as are most other applications).

The solution is to take one from the other and check that it is not greater
than a small number, such as

=ABS(A26-A27)<0.000001

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

"changetires" <[email protected]>
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>
> when comparing two different times why is 00:30 minutes giving me a
> number like .02083333333333333333 and 0:30 minutes from a vlookup table
> is giving me a number like .0208333333284827
>
> whats up with that that is why my conditional formatting is a problem
>
> ed
>
>
> --
> changetires
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> changetires's Profile:
http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=35414
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=565366
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[Tom Hutchins]

Why not just use the ROUND function on the two times in your conditional
formatting formula, to force them to the same number of decimal places? From
your example data, they are identical out to 10 decimal places. Do you need
more precision than that?

Hope this helps,

Hutch

"changetires" wrote:

>
> when comparing two different times why is 00:30 minutes giving me a
> number like .02083333333333333333 and 0:30 minutes from a vlookup table
> is giving me a number like .0208333333284827
>
> whats up with that that is why my conditional formatting is a problem
>
> ed
>
>
> --
> changetires
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> changetires's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=35414
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=565366
>
>