sum of the differences between 2 datetime fields

[redemption]

hi everyone

i'm trying to do some work on finding the sum of the differences between 2 datetime fields in an Oracle (Oracle8) database

this below obviously doesn't work:

SELECT
 SUM(to_char(time_end,'YYYYMMDDHH24MI') - to_char(time_start,'YYYYMMDDHH24MI'))
FROM
 mydb.mytbl
WHERE
 vin=27723

i need to find the difference in hours between the time_start and time_end fields in each row, and then sum up the total of the differences for all the rows

Thanks!

[r937]

> i need to find the difference in hours between
> the time_start and time_end fields in each row,

SELECT ( time_end - time_start ) * 24
  FROM mydb.mytbl
 WHERE vin=27723

> and then sum up the total of the differences for all the rows

SELECT SUM( time_end - time_start ) * 24
  FROM mydb.mytbl
 WHERE vin=27723

[redemption]

thanks rudy!

i also just found out that when you subtract 2 DATE fields, you get the difference in the no. of days too... and that solves all (well most... the NT version of SQL Plus isn't all that fun to work with ) my problems