How to get session length in minute in SQL Server

Question

Using following query in my procedure I can count to connection to my database

SELECT 
    COUNT(dbid) as 'Total Connections'
FROM 
    master.dbo.sysprocesses WITH (nolock)
WHERE 
    dbid = 7 

This is working fine, is there any way to get length of the every connection/session in minutes?

Answer 1

If you do this:

SELECT DATEDIFF(n, login_time, GETDATE()) AS SessionTime
FROM master.dbo.sysprocesses WITH (nolock)
WHERE dbid =7

You will get the time difference between login_time and now in minutes, which I reckon is session time.

BEWARE OF THIS:

If the return value is out of range for int (-2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647), an error is returned. For millisecond, the maximum difference between startdate and enddate is 24 days, 20 hours, 31 minutes and 23.647 seconds. For second, the maximum difference is 68 years.

From here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189794.aspx

NOTE: You should be okay as you are asking for minutes connected which is not likely to overflow any time soon!