1

I'm trying to find the difference between two dates and display it in months.

$currentDate = date_create(date('Y-m-d'));
$expiryDate = date_create('2022-12-10');
$dateDiff = date_diff($currentDate, $expiryDate);
$formattedDateDiff = $dateDiff->format('%m');

When I var_dump($formattedDateDiff) it just returns 0. Changing the $expiryDate reveals that it seems to be giving the leftover months after the years, i.e. if the expiry date was '2022-01-10', it would give 1, as there's 3 years and 1 month between now and then, whereas I want the full 37 months.

When I var_dump($dateDiff) to see what it is that I'm actually formatting, it returns the following:

object(DateInterval)#830 (16) {
  ["y"]=>
  int(3)
  ["m"]=>
  int(0)
  ["d"]=>
  int(0)
  ["h"]=>
  int(0)
  ["i"]=>
  int(0)
  ["s"]=>
  int(0)
  ["f"]=>
  float(0)
  ["weekday"]=>
  int(0)
  ["weekday_behavior"]=>
  int(0)
  ["first_last_day_of"]=>
  int(0)
  ["invert"]=>
  int(0)
  ["days"]=>
  int(1096)
  ["special_type"]=>
  int(0)
  ["special_amount"]=>
  int(0)
  ["have_weekday_relative"]=>
  int(0)
  ["have_special_relative"]=>
  int(0)
}

So it's obviously expecting every relevant unit to be displayed, rather than just one. Is there a way to return the total number of months in the $dateDiff object, rather than just the leftover months? I could just divide the days by 30, but that seems like such a naff way around it, and wouldn't exactly be the most accurate what with differing lengths of months and such.

Chester Black
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1 Answers1

2

Cant' you just multiply the years in difference for 12?

return $dateDiff->m + ($datediff->y * 12);
napolux
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