How to convert time interval into seconds in PHP

Question

I have two dates, which I need to know if the difference time does not exceed 72 hours between them. Including the seconds

Reading the Documentation of PHP I found that date_diff() was the solution for this, but it returns time in separate ways like this:

DateInterval {#1410 ▼
  interval: + 4d 10:42:00.0
  +"y": 0
  +"m": 0
  +"d": 4
  +"h": 10
  +"i": 42
  +"s": 0
  +"f": 0.0
  +"weekday": 0
  +"weekday_behavior": 0
  +"first_last_day_of": 0
  +"invert": 0
  +"days": 4
  +"special_type": 0
  +"special_amount": 0
  +"have_weekday_relative": 0
  +"have_special

So I use a format to get the time, but I also need a format to unite the hours and the seconds, this is my function

public function compare(){

 return $diff = (date_diff(new DateTime('2020-12-24T00:00:00'),new DateTime('2020-12-28T10:42:00')));
 $diff = $interval->format('%h')+(($interval->format('%d')*24)+($interval->format('%m')*28*24)+($interval->format('%y')*365*28*24))*3600;
}

The second line in your function will never be executed since control returns on the first line. — Tangentially Perpendicular, Dec 28 '20 at 15:09
If somebody answers your question please consider [accepting it](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/5234/179419) by clicking the check-mark. This indicates to the wider community that you've found a solution and gives some reputation to both the answerer and yourself. — 0stone0, Dec 28 '20 at 21:46

0stone0 · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-28T21:46:04.967

Using strtotime(), convert both the timestamps to UNIX format, then you can easily calculate the difference using seconds.

Afterwords, use a simple function to convert the seconds to HMS;

<?php


    $date_1 = strtotime('2020-12-24T00:00:00');
    $date_2 = strtotime('2020-12-28T10:42:00');
    
    // Get diff in seconds
    $diff = $date_2 - $date_1;
    
    // If $diff exeeds 72hours
    if ($diff > (72 * (60 * 60))) {
        echo "Exceed 72 hours" . PHP_EOL;
    }
    
    // Show diff + hms
    echo $diff . ' -- ' . toHMS($diff);
    
    
    function toHMS($seconds) {
      $t = round($seconds);
      return sprintf('%02d:%02d:%02d', ($t/3600),($t/60%60), $t%60);
    }

Exceed 72 hours

384120 -- 106:42:00

Try the above PHP code online!

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 28 '20 at 15:13

0

You don't need to use date_diff there are functions on the DateTime classes themselves:


$date1 = new DateTime('2006-04-12T12:30:00');
$date2 = new DateTime('2006-04-14T11:30:00');

$diff = $date2->diff($date1);

$hours = $diff->h;

answered Dec 28 '20 at 15:13

rattybag

381
2
8

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 28 '20 at 21:40

I managed to find the solution by using strtotime as follows

$date_1 = strtotime('2020-12-28 00:00:00');
    $date_2 = strtotime('2020-12-31 00:00:01');
    $diff = $date_2 - $date_1;
    // 259200 = 72 hours in seconds
    if ($diff > 259200) {
      echo 'exceeds 72 hours';
   }else
   {
    echo 'ended on time';
   }

By substracting the dates, I just need to compare the result with 259200 wich is the value of 72 hours in seconds, if its higher than that, then it exceeds the time limit.

How is this different than my answer? – 0stone0 Dec 28 '20 at 21:42 — 0stone0, Dec 28 '20 at 21:42

How to convert time interval into seconds in PHP

3 Answers3