PHP convert datetime to seconds

Question

I have a datetime value in mysql '2010-12-08 16:12:12'
that I'd like to get the seconds to that date using PHP,
so basically a PHP equivalent of mysql :

TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF('2010-12-08 16:12:12',now()))

Answer 1

<?php

$date1 = new DateTime("2010-12-08 16:12:12");
$now = new DateTime();

$difference_in_seconds = $date1->format('U') - $now->format('U');

->format('U') turns it into a unix timestamp.