This may not be the best way to do it but, you could build a function to convert the times into seconds and use subtraction. Your function would have to tokenize the time format using the : as a break.

Actually, you don't even need to convert the times into seconds. Just tokenize the time into hours and minutes then subtract. Your output will already be in the correct format.
Mark

but i am already taking input from the user in hours minutes and seconds in hh:mm:ss format. but i don't know how to calculate the difference between two different inputs. i don't know that particular equation

do you mean to say (hh:mm:ss)-(hh:mm:ss) ?

Sure, use a tokenizer to separate HH, MM, and SS from HH:MMS. Then subtract HH from your other HH, MM from MM, etc. As long as it is in 24hr format it should work. You will have to write some code to decrement HH and MM if you need to borrow. Once you have done the math, put the answer back into a string in the format of HH:MMS or whatever other format you need.

Mark

I don't know what the deal is with the smileys but I mean ": S" minus the space." Stupid smileys.

okay. so you are trying so say to use (hh1-hh2) and (mm1-mm2) and (ss1-ss2) format?

yep! well HH(Stop)-HH(Start), etc..

thanks for your help dmmclev.

can i ask you one more question? what should i do if i want to refresh that time every second?

for example, i am my program is recording a channel between start and stop time and i want to show the amount of time that has been recorded and make it refreshing every second.

Each second add 1 to a counter and output that counter.

<vader>
I sense a disturbance in the ethernet, a sense that the same question has been asked elsewhere
</vader>

sorry man, i didn't know the rules. i posted it elsewhere because i didn't know which forum is faster in replying and i was really in hurry to get the help