How to calculate difference of two string dates in days using PHP?

Question

I have two date variables:

$dnow = "2016-12-1";
$dafter = "2016-12-11";

I want to calculate the difference of this two dates which are in string format so how do I calculate? I used

date_diff($object, $object2)

but it expecting two date object, and I have dates in String format , After using date_diff I get following error

Message: Object of class DateInterval could not be converted to string.

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) — Rav, Dec 01 '16 at 08:09
Possible duplicate of [Finding the number of days between two dates](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2040560/finding-the-number-of-days-between-two-dates) — Mohammad, Dec 01 '16 at 08:13

score 7 · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-01T09:02:38.883

7

Try this, use date_create

$dnow = "2016-12-1";
$dafter = "2016-12-11";
$date1=date_create($dnow);
$date2=date_create($dafter);
$diff=date_diff($date1,$date2);
print_r($diff);

DEMO

edited Dec 01 '16 at 09:02

answered Dec 01 '16 at 08:38

Jerodev · Answer 2 · 2016-12-01T09:37:33.873

6

You could use the strtotime function to create a timestamp of both dates and compare those values.

<?php

$start = strtotime('2016-12-1');
$end = strtotime('2016-12-11');
$diffInSeconds = $end - $start;
$diffInDays = $diffInSeconds / 86400;

edited Dec 01 '16 at 09:37

answered Dec 01 '16 at 08:24

Jerodev

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The code return difference time in second. You should convert it to day. – Mohammad Dec 01 '16 at 08:29
1

There are 86400 seconds in a day, so divide the result by this number. – Jerodev Dec 01 '16 at 09:37

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 01 '16 at 08:35

3

$datetime1=date_create($dnow);
$datetime2 = date_create($dafter);
$interval = date_diff($datetime1, $datetime2);
echo $interval->format('%R%a days');
//%R is used to show +ive or -ive symbol and %a is used to show you numeric difference

edited Dec 01 '16 at 08:35

Mohammad

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answered Dec 01 '16 at 08:29

Aditya

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 19 '21 at 09:29

0

If you just need the number of days, then you can use the DateInterval object's days property.

$day1 = '2016-12-1';
$day2 = '2016-12-11';
$days_elapsed = date_diff(date_create(date($day1)), date_create($day2)) -> days;

echo $days_elapsed; //Outputs 10

answered Nov 19 '21 at 09:29

Pikamander2

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score -1 · Answer 5 · 2016-12-01T09:19:18.003

-1

$dnow = "2016-12-1";
$dafter = "2016-12-11";
$dnow=date_create($dnow);
$dafter=date_create($dafter);
$difference=date_diff($dnow,$dafter);

edited Dec 01 '16 at 09:19

answered Dec 01 '16 at 09:03

1

Duplicate of @krunal answer. – Mohammad Dec 01 '16 at 09:09
1

You only changed variable name, but solution is same. – Mohammad Dec 01 '16 at 15:13

How to calculate difference of two string dates in days using PHP?

5 Answers5