return difference of two dates in PHP

Question

I need to compare a past/future date with current date in PHP and present the difference in a "4 hours until", or "2 days 3 hours until" or "5 hours ago" format. Optionally in a "-4h" (which is bad) or "4h" (which is good) format.

So in a example:

x = $expiry_date - $todays_date

If the result is positive, eg. $expiry_date is 4 hours in the future, x = "4 hours to go", or "4 hrs". If the result was negative, for example "4 hours ago" or "-4hrs".

Any other, similarly sounding result formats are fine.

Any help please?

If you get difference of timestamps, then it's just simple division by number of seconds in an hour, day etc. — MightyPork, Aug 07 '13 at 10:31
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1416697/converting-timestamp-to-time-ago-in-php-e-g-1-day-ago-2-days-ago — Mircea Soaica, Aug 07 '13 at 10:33
Please see the PHP manual for ['DataTime::diff()`](http://php.net/manual/en/datetime.diff.php). That should make it easy to get the hours/minutes/whatever values that you need. As for formatting it with "X hours in the future", you'll need to format the string yourself. — Spudley, Aug 07 '13 at 10:33
Yes: http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.diff.php | and http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/g2010a/2008/04/12/datehelper-for-fuzzy-date-differences — MightyPork, Aug 07 '13 at 10:34

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 07 '13 at 10:34

Refer Dates diff in PHP

$date1 = "2013-08-11";
$date2 = "2012-07-12";

$diff = abs(strtotime($date2) - strtotime($date1));

$years = floor($diff / (365*60*60*24));
$months = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24) / (30*60*60*24));
$days = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24)/ (60*60*24));

printf("%d years, %d months, %d days\n", $years, $months, $days);

Or

$date1 = new DateTime("2007-03-24");
$date2 = new DateTime("2009-06-26");
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
echo "difference " . $interval->y . " years, " . $interval->m." months, ".$interval->d." days "; 

//or simply
//echo "difference " . $interval->days . " days ";

Beware of using calculations like `$time += 24*60*60` to manipulate timestamps. This creates problems with daylight saving time and other timezone anomalies. Use methods like `$time = strtotime('+1 day', $time)` instead. — ironcito, Aug 07 '13 at 10:42

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 07 '13 at 10:34

You can do that using the Carbon library. It would go something like this:

$now = Carbon::now();
$then = Carbon::create(2013, 8, 8, 23, 26, 11);
echo $now->diffForHumans($then);

The output will be a human readable string just like what you're looking for.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

0

See this question.

The variable will contain the difference in seconds, which you can then divide as required to get minutes/hours/days etc. E.g. divide by 60 to get minutes, 60 again to get hours etc. Then do some simple value checking to format as required.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

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answered Aug 07 '13 at 10:34

Chris Brown

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return difference of two dates in PHP

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