Purpose of "Duration" datatype in Power Query

[QQQ]

I am editing data in Power Query 

Parsed "Occurred On" into Date and Time. Can you tell me how I would use "Duration". 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @QQQ,

I think you can take a look at bleow links which about duration.

Reference:

Function	Description
Duration.Days	Returns the day component of a Duration value.
Duration.From	Returns a duration value from a value.
Duration.FromText	Returns a Duration value from a text value.
Duration.Hours	Returns an hour component of a Duration value.
Duration.Minutes	Returns a minute component of a Duration value.
Duration.Seconds	Returns a second component of a Duration value.
Duration.ToRecord	Returns a record with parts of a Duration value.
Duration.TotalDays	Returns the total magnitude of days from a Duration value.
Duration.TotalHours	Returns the total magnitude of hours from a Duration value.
Duration.TotalMinutes	Returns the total magnitude of minutes from a Duration value.
Duration.TotalSeconds	Returns the total magnitude of seconds from a duration value.

For instance:

Duration.Second([Datetime Column]) //get the second value(0~59) of datetime

Duration.TotalSeconds([Datetime Column]) //convert datetime value to second

Sample: get the diff of date range and convert them to second.

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

[AnetaK]

Hello,

How can I change the "Custom" column from your example to a duration format like YY:MM:DD.HH:MM:SS?

My End-Start column is simply [End]-[Start].

Duration... is Duration.TotalSeconds([End]-[Start]).

I would like to get a column that looks like End-Start in the Query Editor, so sth like 1.15:20:30.

If I change the format of Duration... to "Time" I get an error "We can't automatically convert the column to Time type."

What should I do now?

[MarcelBeug]

Change the duration to text.

[AnetaK]

It does not change anything.

[MarcelBeug]

Another example in this topic in which "epoch" (seconds since 1/1/1970 0:00) is converted to UTC datetime and local date.

(In this example, epoch is a number in text format, that's why I used Number.From).