Though I found a number of people who ran into the issue of 5.2 and lower not supporting this function, I was unable to find any solid examples to get around it. Therefore I hope this can help some others:
<?php
function get_timespan_string($older, $newer) {
$Y1 = $older->format('Y');
$Y2 = $newer->format('Y');
$Y = $Y2 - $Y1;
$m1 = $older->format('m');
$m2 = $newer->format('m');
$m = $m2 - $m1;
$d1 = $older->format('d');
$d2 = $newer->format('d');
$d = $d2 - $d1;
$H1 = $older->format('H');
$H2 = $newer->format('H');
$H = $H2 - $H1;
$i1 = $older->format('i');
$i2 = $newer->format('i');
$i = $i2 - $i1;
$s1 = $older->format('s');
$s2 = $newer->format('s');
$s = $s2 - $s1;
if($s < 0) {
$i = $i -1;
$s = $s + 60;
}
if($i < 0) {
$H = $H - 1;
$i = $i + 60;
}
if($H < 0) {
$d = $d - 1;
$H = $H + 24;
}
if($d < 0) {
$m = $m - 1;
$d = $d + get_days_for_previous_month($m2, $Y2);
}
if($m < 0) {
$Y = $Y - 1;
$m = $m + 12;
}
$timespan_string = create_timespan_string($Y, $m, $d, $H, $i, $s);
return $timespan_string;
}
function get_days_for_previous_month($current_month, $current_year) {
$previous_month = $current_month - 1;
if($current_month == 1) {
$current_year = $current_year - 1; //going from January to previous December
$previous_month = 12;
}
if($previous_month == 11 || $previous_month == 9 || $previous_month == 6 || $previous_month == 4) {
return 30;
}
else if($previous_month == 2) {
if(($current_year % 4) == 0) { //remainder 0 for leap years
return 29;
}
else {
return 28;
}
}
else {
return 31;
}
}
function create_timespan_string($Y, $m, $d, $H, $i, $s)
{
$timespan_string = '';
$found_first_diff = false;
if($Y >= 1) {
$found_first_diff = true;
$timespan_string .= pluralize($Y, 'year').' ';
}
if($m >= 1 || $found_first_diff) {
$found_first_diff = true;
$timespan_string .= pluralize($m, 'month').' ';
}
if($d >= 1 || $found_first_diff) {
$found_first_diff = true;
$timespan_string .= pluralize($d, 'day').' ';
}
if($H >= 1 || $found_first_diff) {
$found_first_diff = true;
$timespan_string .= pluralize($H, 'hour').' ';
}
if($i >= 1 || $found_first_diff) {
$found_first_diff = true;
$timespan_string .= pluralize($i, 'minute').' ';
}
if($found_first_diff) {
$timespan_string .= 'and ';
}
$timespan_string .= pluralize($s, 'second');
return $timespan_string;
}
function pluralize( $count, $text )
{
return $count . ( ( $count == 1 ) ? ( " $text" ) : ( " ${text}s" ) );
}
?>
DateTime::diff
date_diff
(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0)
DateTime::diff -- date_diff — ふたつの DateTime オブジェクトの差を返す
説明
オブジェクト指向型
手続き型
ふたつの DateTime オブジェクトの差を返します。
パラメータ
-
datetime -
比較する日付。
-
absolute -
差の絶対値を返すか否か。
返り値
ふたつの日付の差をあらわす DateInterval オブジェクトを返します。
失敗した場合に FALSE を返します
例
例1 DateTime::diff() の例
オブジェクト指向型
<?php
$datetime1 = new DateTime('2009-10-11');
$datetime2 = new DateTime('2009-10-13');
$interval = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);
echo $interval->format('%R%a days');
?>
手続き型
<?php
$datetime1 = date_create('2009-10-11');
$datetime2 = date_create('2009-10-13');
$interval = date_diff($datetime1, $datetime2);
echo $interval->format('%R%a days');
?>
上の例の出力は以下となります。
+2 days
参考
- DateInterval::format() - 間隔をフォーマットする
- DateTime::add() - 年月日時分秒の値を DateTime オブジェクトに加える
- DateTime::sub() - 年月日時分秒の値を DateTime オブジェクトから引く
sgmurphy19
08-Feb-2012 11:00
toreskobba at gmail dot com
10-Nov-2011 03:24
When using datediff make sure your time zone is correct, for me on Windows 7 64 bit it behaved very strange when timezone was wrong (I was comparing now against time in database and exif metadata in photos). For example: date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Oslo');
astagl at gmail dot com
09-Nov-2011 08:21
I needed to get the exact number of days between 2 dates and was relying on the this diff function, but found that I was getting a peculiar result with:
<?php
$today = new DateTime(date('2011-11-09'));
$appt = new DateTime(date('2011-12-09'));
$days_until_appt = $appt->diff($today)->d;
?>
This was returning 0 because it was exactly one month.
I had to end up using :
<?php
$days_until_appt = $appt->diff($today)->days;
?>
to get 30.
Anonymous
03-Oct-2011 08:12
$dateTime = new DateTime('2011-08-01 00:00:00');
echo $dateTime->diff(new DateTime('2011-10-01 00:00:01'))->format('%m');
will return 1, instead of 2 ...
milespickens+php at gmail dot com
16-May-2011 03:00
I was looking for a way to output X number of days from a given date and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. But I got this working. I hope this helps you.
This will output the number of days,months, or years difference between NOW and a April 1st, 2011.
<?php
$date1 = new DateTime('2011-04-01');
$date2 = new DateTime("now");
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
$years = $interval->format('%y');
$months = $interval->format('%m');
$days = $interval->format('%d');
if($years!=0){
$ago = $years.' year(s) ago';
}else{
$ago = ($months == 0 ? $days.' day(s) ago' : $months.' month(s) ago');
}
echo $ago;
?>
If I used today, 2011-05-16 as $date1, I could return all 0's in the format. For example....
<?php
$date1 = new DateTime('2011-05-161');
$date2 = new DateTime("now");
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
$diff = $interval->format('%y-%m-%d');
echo $diff; //Today, this will output 0-0-0
?>
Grgoire Marchal
18-Feb-2011 02:22
Warning, there's a bug on windows platforms: the result is always 6015 days (and not 42...)
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=51184
schindhelm at gmail dot com
21-Jan-2011 12:48
I found that DateTime::diff isn't as accurate as I thought. I calculated the age gap between now and a birthdate from before 1970 (unix epoch). Here's what I got:
Given today is January 21st, 2011:
<?php
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Berlin');
// birthdate format is YYYY-MM-DD
$birth = new DateTime('1966-01-21');
$today = new DateTime();
$diff = $birth->diff($today);
echo $diff->format('%y'); // will output 45
$birth = new DateTime('1966-01-23');
$today = new DateTime();
$diff = $birth->diff($today);
echo $diff->format('%y'); // will output 45 wrongly
$birth = new DateTime('1966-01-24'); // three days difference!
$today = new DateTime();
$diff = $birth->diff($today);
echo $diff->format('%y'); // will output 44 - correct
?>
When calculating with the date() function it was more accurate (didn't use seconds/hours for comparison).
Note that 3 days may be a lot if you want to create invoices and have to check against a given age to determine if the customer is chargable for taxes and so on.
If someone also found this behaviour I'd like to hear about it - give me a quick mail at schindhelm (at) gmail (dot) com.
Thanks.
Umair Ashraf
21-Nov-2010 11:49
for PHP version 5.3
<?php
function pluralize( $count, $text )
{
return $count . ( ( $count == 1 ) ? ( " $text" ) : ( " ${text}s" ) );
}
function ago( $datetime )
{
$interval = date_create('now')->diff( $datetime );
$suffix = ( $interval->invert ? ' ago' : '' );
if ( $v = $interval->y >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->y, 'year' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->m >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->m, 'month' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->d >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->d, 'day' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->h >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->h, 'hour' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->i >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->i, 'minute' ) . $suffix;
return pluralize( $interval->s, 'second' ) . $suffix;
}
?>
for PHP version 5.2
<?php
public function ago($dt)
{
$dt = date_parse($dt);
$now = date_parse(date("Y-m-d H:i:s"));
$suffix = " ago";
if ($now['year'] != $dt['year']) return $this->pluralize($now['year'] - $dt['year'], "year") . $suffix;
if ($now['month'] != $dt['month']) return $this->pluralize($now['month'] - $dt['month'], "month") . $suffix;
if ($now['day'] != $dt['day']) return $this->pluralize($now['day'] - $dt['day'], "day") . $suffix;
if ($now['hour'] != $dt['hour']) return $this->pluralize($now['hour'] - $dt['hour'], "hour") . $suffix;
if ($now['minute'] != $dt['minute']) return $this->pluralize($now['minute'] - $dt['minute'], "minute") . $suffix;
if ($now['second'] != $dt['second']) return $this->pluralize($now['second'] - $dt['second'], "second") . $suffix;
return "just now";
}
private function pluralize($count, $text)
{
return $count . (($count == 1) ? (" $text") : (" ${text}s"));
}
?>
acrion at gmail dot com
13-May-2010 08:52
If you want to quickly scan through the resulting intervals, you can use the undocumented properties of DateInterval.
The function below returns a single number of years, months, days, hours, minutes or seconds between the current date and the provided date. If the date occurs in the past (is negative/inverted), it suffixes it with 'ago'.
<?php
function pluralize( $count, $text )
{
return $count . ( ( $count == 1 ) ? ( " $text" ) : ( " ${text}s" ) );
}
function ago( $datetime )
{
$interval = date_create('now')->diff( $datetime );
$suffix = ( $interval->invert ? ' ago' : '' );
if ( $v = $interval->y >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->y, 'year' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->m >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->m, 'month' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->d >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->d, 'day' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->h >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->h, 'hour' ) . $suffix;
if ( $v = $interval->i >= 1 ) return pluralize( $interval->i, 'minute' ) . $suffix;
return pluralize( $interval->s, 'second' ) . $suffix;
}
?>
Dennis C
09-May-2010 11:24
For those like me who don't yet have PHP 5.3 installed on their host, here's a simple alternative to get the number of days between two dates in the format '2010-3-23' or similar acceptable to strtotime(). You need PHP 5.2.
<?php
function date_diff($date1, $date2) {
$current = $date1;
$datetime2 = date_create($date2);
$count = 0;
while(date_create($current) < $datetime2){
$current = gmdate("Y-m-d", strtotime("+1 day", strtotime($current)));
$count++;
}
return $count;
}
echo (date_diff('2010-3-9', '2011-4-10')." days <br \>");
?>
Anonymous
04-Aug-2009 05:17
You don't need to calculate the exact difference if you just want to know what date comes earlier:
<?php
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Madrid');
$d1 = new DateTime('1492-01-01');
$d2 = new DateTime('1492-12-31');
var_dump($d1 < $d2);
var_dump($d1 > $d2);
var_dump($d1 == $d2);
?>
bool(true)
bool(false)
bool(false)
