Get difference between two specific number of hours using PHP

Question

I wanna get the difference between specific number of hours, as I'm working on payroll project which requires to get total working hours of an employee.

let's say the employee has worked for 40:18:20 (hh:mm:ss) And he missed to work for 12:15:10 (hh:mm:ss)

I want to get the difference between those two times as following: (40:18:20) - (12:15:10) = (28:03:10)

Is it possible via PHP functions?

What I actually did, is to split that as string, and tried to subtract each number individually and then recollect them again, which is "as I think" is not professional.

Please advise.

Possible duplicate of [How to calculate the difference between two dates using PHP?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/676824/how-to-calculate-the-difference-between-two-dates-using-php) — Genzotto, Mar 09 '16 at 08:43

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 09 '16 at 08:37

you can use this function

function getTimeDiff($dtime,$atime){
$nextDay=$dtime>$atime?1:0;
$dep=explode(':',$dtime);
$arr=explode(':',$atime);


$diff=abs(mktime($dep[0],$dep[1],0,date('n'),date('j'),date('y'))-mktime($arr[0],$arr[1],0,date('n'),date('j')+$nextDay,date('y')));

//Hour

$hours=floor($diff/(60*60));

//Minute 

$mins=floor(($diff-($hours*60*60))/(60));

//Second

$secs=floor(($diff-(($hours*60*60)+($mins*60))));

if(strlen($hours)<2)
{
    $hours="0".$hours;
}

if(strlen($mins)<2)
{
    $mins="0".$mins;
}

if(strlen($secs)<2)
{
    $secs="0".$secs;
}

return $hours.':'.$mins.':'.$secs;

}

Thanks @yasen, but this looks like the other way of dealing with the time as string, while I want to use a PHP implemented function if it's available. — CairoCoder, Mar 09 '16 at 08:42

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 09 '16 at 09:02

This will handle differences greater than 24 hours. Code is maybe a bit too broken down, but on the other hand it is easy to understand.

// Use any valid date in both cases
$a = new DateTime(date("Y-m-d H:i:s", mktime(5, 20, 15, 12, 31, 2016)));
$b = new DateTime(date("Y-m-d H:i:s", mktime(65, 10, 5, 12, 31, 2016)));
$c = $a->diff($b);

$days = $c->format("%a");
$hours = intVal($c->format("%H")) + intVal($days);
$minutes = $c->format("%m");
$seconds = $c->format("%s");

// Unformatted result
print $hours . ':' . $minutes . ':' . $seconds;

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 09 '16 at 09:05

this will handle hours greater then 24.

    $start = date_create(gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s',timeTosec('40:18:20')));
    $end = date_create(gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s',timeTosec('12:15:10')));

    $diff=date_diff($end,$start);
    print_r($diff);
    function timeTosec($time){
        sscanf($time, "%d:%d:%d", $hours, $minutes, $seconds);

        $time_seconds = isset($seconds) ? $hours * 3600 + $minutes * 60 + $seconds : $hours * 60 + $minutes;
        return $time_seconds;
    }

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 09 '16 at 09:08

Another solution with mktime:

$diff return a timestamp then you need to convert it in hh:mm:ss

$diff = mktime(40,18,20)-mktime(12,15,10);
$hours = $diff/3600 %3600;
$minutes = $diff/60 %60;
$seconds = $diff % 60;
$time= $hours.":".$minutes.":".$seconds;

Get difference between two specific number of hours using PHP

4 Answers4