How to calculate the date difference between 2 dates using php

Question

Hi,

I have to dates of the form

Start Date: 2007-03-24 End Date: 2009-06-26

Now I need to find the difference between these two in the below form:

2 years, 3 months and 2 days

Can someone please help me with this

Answer 1

You can use strtotime() to convert two dates to unix time and then calculate the number of seconds between them. From this it's rather easy to calculate different time periods.

$date1 = "2007-03-24";
$date2 = "2009-06-26";

$diff = abs(strtotime($date2) - strtotime($date1));

$years = floor($diff / (365*60*60*24));
$months = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24) / (30*60*60*24));
$days = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24)/ (60*60*24));

printf("%d years, %d months, %d days\n", $years, $months, $days);

Answer 2

Here you find a working function to do that: http://www.developertutorials.com/tutorials/php/calculating-difference-between-dates-php-051018/page1.html

You could find it searching in google the title of your question.

Answer 3

You can use the

getdate()

function which returns an array containing all elements of the date/time supplied:

$diff = abs($endDate - $startDate);
$my_t=getdate($diff);
print("$my_t[year] years, $my_t[month] months and $my_t[mday] days");

If your start and end dates are in string format then use

$startDate = strtotime($startDateStr);
$endDate = strtotime($endDateStr);

before the above code

Answer 4

2 years 94 days. Calculating the months, taking into account leap years, would be problematic. How accurate does this need to be?

Answer 5

I found your article on the following page, which contains a number of references for Php Date Time calculations.

Calculate the difference between two Dates (and time) using Php. The following page provides a range of different methods (7 in total) for performing date / time calculations using Php, to determine the difference in time (hours, munites), days, months or years between two dates.

See Php Date Time – 7 Methods to Calculate the Difference between 2 dates.

Answer 6

View Hours and Minuts and Seconds..

$date1 = "2008-11-01 22:45:00"; 

$date2 = "2009-12-04 13:44:01"; 

$diff = abs(strtotime($date2) - strtotime($date1)); 

$years   = floor($diff / (365*60*60*24)); 
$months  = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24) / (30*60*60*24)); 
$days    = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24)/ (60*60*24));

$hours   = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24)/ (60*60)); 

$minuts  = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24 - $hours*60*60)/ 60); 

$seconds = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24 - $hours*60*60 - $minuts*60)); 

printf("%d years, %d months, %d days, %d hours, %d minuts\n, %d seconds\n", $years, $months, $days, $hours, $minuts, $seconds); 

Answer 7

$years = floor($diff / (365.25*60*60*24)); - is much better...

Answer 8

how many methods are to caliculate the date-diff in php?

Answer 9

I don't know if you are using a PHP framework or not, but a lot of PHP frameworks have date/time libraries and helpers to help keep you from reinventing the wheel.

For example CodeIgniter has the timespan() function. Simply input two Unix timestamps and it will automatically generate a result like this:

1 Year, 10 Months, 2 Weeks, 5 Days, 10 Hours, 16 Minutes

http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/helpers/date_helper.html

Answer 10

I suggest to use DateTime and DateInterval objects.

$date1 = new DateTime("2007-03-24");
$date2 = new DateTime("2009-06-26");
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
echo "difference " . $interval->y . " years, " . $interval->m." months, ".$interval->d." days "; 

read more php DateTime::diff manual

Answer 11

You can find answer using this URL http://erandaisuru.blogspot.com/2009/10/hot-to-get-time-difference-using-php.html

Answer 12

I voted for jurka's answer as that's my favorite, but I have a pre-php.5.3 version...

I found myself working on a similar problem - which is how I got to this question in the first place - but just needed a difference in hours. But my function solved this one pretty nicely as well and I don't have anywhere in my own library to keep it where it won't get lost and forgotten, so... hope this is useful to someone.

/**
 *
 * @param DateTime $oDate1
 * @param DateTime $oDate2
 * @return array 
 */
function date_diff_array(DateTime $oDate1, DateTime $oDate2) {
    $aIntervals = array(
        'year'   => 0,
        'month'  => 0,
        'week'   => 0,
        'day'    => 0,
        'hour'   => 0,
        'minute' => 0,
        'second' => 0,
    );

    foreach($aIntervals as $sInterval => &$iInterval) {
        while($oDate1 < $oDate2){ 
            $oDate1->modify('+1 ' . $sInterval);
            if ($oDate1 >= $oDate2) {
                $oDate1->modify('-1 ' . $sInterval);
                break;
            } else {
                $iInterval++;
            }
        }
    }

    return $aIntervals;
}

And the test:

$oDate = new DateTime();
$oDate->modify('+111402189 seconds');
var_dump($oDate);
var_dump(date_diff_array(new DateTime(), $oDate));

And the result:

object(DateTime)[2]
  public 'date' => string '2014-04-29 18:52:51' (length=19)
  public 'timezone_type' => int 3
  public 'timezone' => string 'America/New_York' (length=16)

array
  'year'   => int 3
  'month'  => int 6
  'week'   => int 1
  'day'    => int 4
  'hour'   => int 9
  'minute' => int 3
  'second' => int 8

I got the original idea from here, which I modified for my uses (and I hope my modification will show on that page as well).

You can very easily remove intervals you don't want (say "week") by removing them from the $aIntervals array, or maybe adding an $aExclude parameter, or just filter them out when you output the string.