durationinterval

Durationinterval is a temporal data concept used in scheduling, time-series analysis, and calendar systems to denote a finite span of time that begins at a specific moment and lasts for a given length. In its typical form it is a pair consisting of a start timestamp and a duration, with end computed as end = start + duration. Some representations store the explicit end instead of duration; when both start and end are known, they define the same interval as a start/duration pair.

ISO 8601 and related standards support interval notation that conveys the same idea, commonly as start/end or start/duration. For example, 2024-06-01T12:00:00Z/PT2H specifies a durationinterval starting at noon UTC and lasting two hours, while 2024-06-01T18:00:00Z/PT30M specifies a 30-minute interval starting at 18:00 UTC. In other contexts a durationinterval may be represented internally as a start timestamp and a numeric duration in seconds or milliseconds.

Operations on a durationinterval typically include containment checks (whether a moment falls within the interval), overlap with another interval, and computations of length, intersection, or union. In programming libraries, a durationinterval is commonly modeled as a data structure with fields start and duration or start and end and methods for normalization and comparison.

Common considerations include time zones and daylight saving changes, leap seconds, and precision limits depending on the chosen timestamp format. The concept is related to broader notions of time intervals and durations, and it is used in scheduling, event planning, and data analytics to reason about when events occur and for how long.