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I am writing a code to calculate the exact time elapsed between two points in time. This section of the code is supposed to calculate the number of minutes between years 2000 and 2019 (2000 and 2019 will be calculated individually due to the individual months, days etc...). The code is designed to compensate for leap years, however $total_minutes remain 0 after I run the code. 

$years_1 = 2000;
$years_2 = 2019;
$years = $years_2 - $years_1;   
$total_minutes = 0;

$n = $years - 2;
$start_year = $years_1 + 1;
for ($year = $start_year; $year <= $n; $year++) {
    if ((($year % 4 == 0) && ($year % 100 != 0)) || ($year % 400 == 0)) {
        $total_minutes += 527040;
    } else {
        $total_minutes += 525600;
    }
}

How do I solve this problem?

Emma
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Roelof Coertze
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    Possible duplicate of [How to get time difference in minutes in PHP](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/365191/how-to-get-time-difference-in-minutes-in-php) –  Apr 28 '19 at 21:40
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    dont use strtotime, use the date\time class, 2nd answer in the above –  Apr 28 '19 at 21:40
  • Agreed about using date/time classes, but regarding why the logic isn't working... it sounds like the loop isn't executing. When something like that happens, print out the starting/ending values to see if they're different than you expect. `echo "start_year = $start_year, n = $n\n";` That'll show that start_year = 2001 and n = 17. Since 2001 can never be less than 17, that's why the loop never executes. – SOS Apr 28 '19 at 21:43
  • That makes sense... how should I approach the solution? – Roelof Coertze Apr 28 '19 at 21:44
  • roelofco - I'm not a php guy. Just pointing out how to go about troubleshooting issues like that. Having said that ... with most languages I've used, it's best NOT to roll your own date logic, because you'll miss things :-). Instead use date objects with the tried and true date/time functions already built into the language. Try the link @tim posted above – SOS Apr 28 '19 at 21:47
  • @Ageax Thanks I will give it a shot – Roelof Coertze Apr 28 '19 at 21:48

3 Answers3

1

A simple way to get the number of minutes between the dates above would be to use PHP strtotime():

// You could also pass in datestamps if needed.
// ie: strtotime('2019-03-12 22:44:22')
$seconds = strtotime('first day of january 2019')-strtotime('first day of january 2010');
$minutes = number_format($seconds/60,2);
echo "Minutes: {$minutes}";
Miroslav Glamuzina
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1

These two methods might help you to calculate the total minutes in between two dates from two years, as you wish:

Method 1:

$year2_date = new DateTime('2000-01-01 00:00:00');
$year1_date = $year2_date->diff(new DateTime('2019-12-12 00:00:00'));
$total_minutes = $year1_date->days * 24 * 60;
$total_minutes += $year1_date->h * 60;
$total_minutes += $year1_date->i;

var_dump($total_minutes);

Method 2:

$year2_date = strtotime('2000-01-01 00:00:00');
$year1_date = strtotime('2019-12-12 00:00:00');
$total_minutes = abs($year2_date - $year1_date) / 60;

var_dump($total_minutes);

Output

int(10490400)
Emma
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0

Here is another solution, you can check your minutes interval between two dates in a simple way:

<?php
  function Calc_Minutes($day1, $day2) {
    date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Rome');
    $date1 = new DateTime($day1);
    $date1->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $date2 = new DateTime($day2);
    $date2->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $diffs = $date2->diff($date1);
    $minutes = ($diffs->days * 24 * 60) + ($diffs->h * 60) + $diffs->i;
    return $minutes;
  }
  echo Calc_Minutes("2000-01-01 00:00:00", "2019-01-01 00:00:00");
?>

I hope this helps.

Alessandro
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