CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpdatetimeintervals
Whitecat
Whitecat

Reputation: 4020

Interval between dates including hours php

I want to find interval between dates, the hour function does not work correctly the hour before the time changes. I know there is an answer that partially answers this question here. But it does not answer it according to hours.

I have the following php code:

//helper function to pluralize words
function pluralize( $count, $text ){ 
    return $count . ( ( $count == 1 ) ? ( " $text" ) : ( " ${text}s" ) );
}

/**
 * Difference of dates
 * @param type $date1 DateTime first date
 * @param type $date2 DateTime second date
 * @return type string year, month, day, hour, minute, second 
 */
function timeDiff($date1, $date2 ){
    $string = "";  
    $interval =$date1->diff($date2);
    $suffix = ( $interval->invert ? ' ago' : '' );
    if ( $v = $interval->y >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( $interval->y, 'year' ). ', ';
    if ( $v = $interval->m >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( $interval->m, 'month' ). ', ';
    if ( $v = $interval->d >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( $interval->d, 'day' ). ', ';
    if ( $v = $interval->h >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( ($interval->h), 'hour' ) . ', ';
    if ( $v = $interval->i >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( $interval->i, 'minute' ). ', ';
    if ( $v = $interval->i >= 1 ) $string .= pluralize( $interval->s, 'second' ). ' ';
    return $string . $suffix;
}

I want the following tests to pass. 

$date1 = new DateTime("2014-05-10 20:00:00");
$date2 = new DateTime("2015-11-20 19:45:00");

//This should produce "1 year, 6 months, 9 days, 23 hours, 45 minutes"
//But it does produce "1 year, 6 months, 10 days, 45 minutes"
timeDiff($date1, $date2); 

$date3 = new DateTime("2015-11-20 20:00:00");

//This should, and does produce "1 year, 6 months, 10 days"
timeDiff($date1, $date3);

This looks like a version issue pointed out in comments by @John Conde. It is fixed in the new version of PHP 5.4.24 and on. How can I fix this for previous version of PHP?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 82

Answers (1)

O. Jones
O. Jones

Reputation: 108641

I guess your requirement is to display the elapsed time between two DateTime data items represented in your local time. (If that is not your requirement, please update your question).

I also guess your DateTime items are created correctly in the local time zone. You can check the local timezone setting with date_default_timezone_get() and set it with date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Sydney') for example.

It's possible the person who operates your server has set the server default timezone incorrectly, or that it's located in some other time zone from you. It's also possible that it's set to UTC (also known as Zulu or Z time, formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time or GMT). In that case you'll need to set the local timezone explicitly in your program.

Once you have your timezone set correctly, create your DateTime items. Then convert both DateTime items to UTC. Then compute the difference. Something like this ought to do the trick.

 $utczone = new DateTimeZone('UTC');
 timeDiff($date1->setTimezone($utczone), $date2->setTimezone($utczone));

Upvotes: 1

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