Moment.js months difference

I went a different route trying to get the difference between two months

function getAbsoluteMonths(momentDate) {
  var months = Number(momentDate.format("MM"));
  var years = Number(momentDate.format("YYYY"));
  return months + (years * 12);
}

var startMonths = getAbsoluteMonths(start);
var endMonths = getAbsoluteMonths(end);

var monthDifference = endMonths - startMonths;

This made sense to me and since moment is doing some strange things with diff I just decided to make it clear what my result will be.

I think this has to do with the 'special handling' as described in The Fine Manual:

It is optimized to ensure that two months with the same date are always a whole number apart.

So Jan 15 to Feb 15 should be exactly 1 month.

Feb 28 to Mar 28 should be exactly 1 month.

Feb 28 2011 to Feb 28 2012 should be exactly 1 year.

Moment.js applies this special handling when dealing with 31 Jan and 31 Oct (having the same day):

// 31 Oct 2013 - 1 Feb 2014
> moment([2014, 1, 1]).diff(moment([2013, 9, 31]), 'months', true)
2.983050847457627

// 31 Oct 2013 - 31 Jan 2014
> moment([2014, 0, 31]).diff(moment([2013, 9, 31]), 'months', true)
3

// 31 Oct 2013 - 30 Jan 2014
> moment([2014, 0, 30]).diff(moment([2013, 9, 31]), 'months', true)
2.967741935483871

So the 2.98 value is correct, it's just that the second example turns the result into a 'calender months' difference.

(as for rounding down to 2, that's also documented on the same page)