How to calculate time difference in PHP? [duplicate]

Question

I have to calculate date time difference, how to do that in PHP? I need exact hours, mins and secs. Anybody have the scripts for that?

Answer 1

Use the diff() method of PHP's DateTime class like this:-

$lastWeek = new DateTime('last thursday');
$now = new DateTime();
var_dump($now->diff($lastWeek, true));

This will give you a DateInterval object:-

object(DateInterval)[48]
  public 'y' => int 0
  public 'm' => int 0
  public 'd' => int 2
  public 'h' => int 11
  public 'i' => int 34
  public 's' => int 41
  public 'invert' => int 0
  public 'days' => int 2

Retrieving the values you want from that is trivial.

Answer 2

This should work, just replace the times in the time diff with the time the task started and the current time or the time the task had ended. For a continuous counter the start time would be stored in a database, or for elapsed time for a task the end time would as well

function timeDiff($firstTime,$lastTime){
   // convert to unix timestamps
   $firstTime=strtotime($firstTime);
   $lastTime=strtotime($lastTime);

   // perform subtraction to get the difference (in seconds) between times
   $timeDiff=$lastTime-$firstTime;

   // return the difference
   return $timeDiff;
}

//Usage :
$difference = timeDiff("2002-03-16 10:00:00",date("Y-m-d H:i:s"));
$years = abs(floor($difference / 31536000));
$days = abs(floor(($difference-($years * 31536000))/86400));
$hours = abs(floor(($difference-($years * 31536000)-($days * 86400))/3600));
$mins = abs(floor(($difference-($years * 31536000)-($days * 86400)-($hours * 3600))/60));#floor($difference / 60);
echo "<p>Time Passed: " . $years . " Years, " . $days . " Days, " . $hours . " Hours, " . $mins . " Minutes.</p>";

Answer 3

Check this.. This should work

<?php

function timeDiff($firstTime,$lastTime)
{

// convert to unix timestamps
$firstTime=strtotime($firstTime);
$lastTime=strtotime($lastTime);

// perform subtraction to get the difference (in seconds) between times
$timeDiff=$lastTime-$firstTime;

// return the difference
return $timeDiff;
}

//Usage :
echo timeDiff("2002-04-16 10:00:00","2002-03-16 18:56:32");

?>