PHP DateTime(): Display a length of time greater than 24 hours but not as days if greater than 24 hours

Question

I would like to display a length of time measured in hours, minutes and seconds where some lengths of time are greater than 24 hours. Currently I am trying this:

$timeLength = new DateTime();
$timeLength->setTime(25, 30);
echo $timeLength->format('H:m:i'); // 01:30:00

I would like it to display 25:30:00.

I am looking preferably for an object oriented solution.

Thanks :)

Answer 1

Since you already have the length in seconds, you can just calculate it:

function timeLength($sec)
{
    $s=$sec % 60;
    $m=(($sec-$s) / 60) % 60;
    $h=floor($sec / 3600);
    return $h.":".substr("0".$m,-2).":".substr("0".$s,-2);
}
echo timeLength(6534293); //outputs "1815:04:53"

If you really want to use DateTime object, here's a (kind of cheating) solution:

function dtLength($sec)
{
    $t=new DateTime("@".$sec);
    $r=new DateTime("@0");
    $i=$t->diff($r);
    $h=intval($i->format("%a"))*24+intval($i->format("%H"));
    return $h.":".$i->format("%I:%S");
}
echo dtLength(6534293); //outputs "1815:04:53" too

If you need it OO and don't mind creating your own class, you can try

class DTInterval
{
    private $sec=0;
    function __construct($s){$this->sec=$sec;}
    function formet($format)
    {
        /*$h=...,$m=...,$s=...*/
        $rst=str_replace("H",$h,$format);/*etc.etc.*/
        return $rst;
    }
}

Answer 2

DateTime handles time-of-day, not time intervals. And since there's no 25 o'clock, it's the wrong thing to use. There's DateInterval though, which handles date intervals. Use it or do some manual calculation. Even with DateInterval though you'll have to do some calculations, since it'll break down an interval into days and hours. The most straight forward thing to do is to calculate what you need based on the seconds you already have.