DATEDIF anomaly?

Originally Posted by cruisy

Hi there,
Am getting a curious result when I use Date diff to return a result for 2 identical dates (except for year).

When I do "=DATEDIF(A10,TODAY(),"YD")" ... where A10 = "4 Jun 2003" I get a result of 355.

However, when I do "=DATEDIF(A11,TODAY(),"YD")" where A11 = "4 Jun 2005" I get a result of 354.

Is anyone able to help me out as to why there is a day difference when the year should not matter?
Is there a way around this?

Many thanks in advance
Andy

Hi,
isn't that 'anomaly' called Leap Year (2004)

hth
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Yes - true thanks for that - I guess the confusion for me was that the Microsoft Excel Help stated that by using the qualifying unit of "YD" that "The difference between the days of start_date and end_date. The years of the dates are ignored."

My problem is that I am wanting to find a simple way to work out the number of days from now until a person's birthday. The problem within this is that 2 people share the same birthday but are born in different years ie 2003 and 2005. Thus using Datedif (ignoring the year function) I arrive at different results... is there a better way to do it?

Many thanks in advance (again) if you reply to this
Cheers
Andy

Originally Posted by cruisy

Yes - true thanks for that - I guess the confusion for me was that the Microsoft Excel Help stated that by using the qualifying unit of "YD" that "The difference between the days of start_date and end_date. The years of the dates are ignored."

My problem is that I am wanting to find a simple way to work out the number of days from now until a person's birthday. The problem within this is that 2 people share the same birthday but are born in different years ie 2003 and 2005. Thus using Datedif (ignoring the year function) I arrive at different results... is there a better way to do it?

Many thanks in advance (again) if you reply to this
Cheers
Andy

instead of "YD" why not use "D" and perhaps ignore any Datedif > 370 ?

amend that to, isn't their birthday on the same day each year? - what is the real problem? just that you have a leap day for one birthday?

added - try something like:

=DATEDIF(DATE(YEAR(TODAY())-1,MONTH(A9),DAY(A9)),TODAY(),"YD")

hth
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