How to get specific value from string in PHP

Question

I want to get the time from the first and second sentence [inside brackets] as below then as result see the differences in a minute. for example, in this case, the result is going to be 1 minute.

[04:38:41] Preflight started, flying offline
[04:39:29] Pushing back with 7512 kg of fuel

I appreciate if you can help me to find out how I can do this in PHP.

Thank you

What have you tried so far? Are you stuck in parsing the strings, or in calculating the time difference? — Nico Haase, Feb 07 '19 at 09:39
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/365191/how-to-get-time-difference-in-minutes-in-php — splash58, Feb 07 '19 at 09:40
Use regex pattern [`/^\[(.*?)\]/`](https://regex101.com/r/pFIZyy/1) to capture times — Mohammad, Feb 07 '19 at 09:41
@Ashu how can you say that without knowing their business rules? — Federico klez Culloca, Feb 07 '19 at 10:08
@FedericoklezCulloca result will come in sec which is '48'.. but he mentions it will be 1 minute — Ashu, Feb 07 '19 at 11:11
@Ashu and for their business rules that may be ok because it's more than 30 seconds or because it's more than 30 seconds and before 8 AM. We don't know. That's what I'm getting at. — Federico klez Culloca, Feb 07 '19 at 11:31

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 07 '19 at 09:47

1

You can use the following example to get the number of seconds between the two:

$datetime1 = strtotime('11:01:00');
$datetime2 = strtotime('11:00:01');

echo abs($datetime1-$datetime2);

edited Feb 07 '19 at 09:47

Mike Doe

16,349
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answered Feb 07 '19 at 09:46

Shai

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4

Thanks for sharing but you did not mention how I can get the time from the string in first place. That one only change the string to time. – Amir Solo Feb 08 '19 at 08:33
Check [preg_match_all example](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10104473/capturing-text-between-square-brackets-in-php/10104517). notice that you need to use 'preg_match' instead of 'preg_match_all' – Shai Feb 11 '19 at 09:23

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '19 at 09:56

You can use the following example to get the difference in seconds.

$string1 = '[04:38:41] Preflight started, flying offline';
$string2 = '[04:39:29] Pushing back with 7512 kg of fuel';

$datetime1 = substr($string1,4,6); // Getting the time of the first string
$datetime2 = substr($string2,4,6); // Getting the time of the second string

echo abs($datetime1-$datetime2); // Calculating the difference between the two values.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '19 at 10:03

Try this

<?php
$time1 = explode(':', "04:38:41");
$time2 = explode(':', "04:39:29");
echo $result =  $time2[1] - $time1[1];
?>

OR, you can do from full texts

<?php
$time1_string = "[04:38:41] Preflight started, flying offline";
$time2_string = "[04:39:29] Pushing back with 7512 kg of fuel";
$time1 = explode(':', $time1_string);
$time2 = explode(':', $time2_string);
echo $result =  $time2[1] - $time1[1];
?>

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 07 '19 at 10:12

you can also achieve your desired result by using preg_match()

Example:

<?php
//string 1
$text1 = '[04:38:41] Preflight started, flying offline';
preg_match('/\\[([^\\]]*)\\]/', $text1, $match);
$time1 = $match[1]; // will return 04:38:41

//string 2
$text2 = '[04:39:29] Pushing back with 7512 kg of fuel';
preg_match('/\\[([^\\]]*)\\]/', $text2, $match);
$time2 = $match[1]; // will return 04:39:29

// check difference
$diff = abs(strtotime($time2) - strtotime($time1));
echo $diff; // will return 48 seconds
?>

How to get specific value from string in PHP

4 Answers4