title: time difference in military time in Java
body: <p>So for an assignment we had to write a program that takes two times in military time and shows the difference in hours and minutes between them assuming the first time is the earlier of the two times. We weren't allowed to use if statements as it technically has not be learned. Here's an example of what it'd look like run. In quotes I'll put what is manually entered when it is prompted to.</p>
  
  <pre><code>java MilitaryTime
  
  Please enter first time:  "0900"
  
  Please enter second time:  "1730"
  
  8 hours 30 minutes    (this is the final answer)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I was able to quite easily get this part done with the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class MilitaryTime  {
  
     public static void main(String [] args) {
  
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
  
              System.out.println("Please enter the first time: ");
  
              int FirstTime = in.nextInt();
  
              System.out.println("Please enter the second time: ");
  
              int SecondTime = in.nextInt();
  
              int FirstHour = FirstTime / 100;
  
              int FirstMinute = FirstTime % 100;
  
              int SecondHour = SecondTime / 100;
  
              int SecondMinute = SecondTime % 100;
  
              System.out.println( ( SecondHour - FirstHour ) + " hours " + ( SecondMinute 
  
                  - FirstMinute ) + " minutes "  );
         }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now my question is something wasn't assigned (or I wouldn't be here!) is there's another part to this question in the book that says to take that program we just wrote and deal with the case where the first time is later than the second. This has really intrigued me about how this would be done and has really stumped me. Again we aren't allowed to use if statements or this would be easy we basically have all the mathematical functions to work with. </p>
  
  <p>An example would be the first time is now 1730 and the second time is 0900 and so now it returns 15 hours 30 minutes.</p>