Get the difference between two Dates - Time and Date

The function presented in this page, diffDateTime(), can be used to get the difference between 2 dates, time and date . This function receives two parameters: the start and ending datetime between will get the difference. It can be used various date / time formats: Unix Timestamp, or a string containing about any English textual datetime description.

Function to get the difference between 2 datetimes

Returns an array containing a string with a textual reprezentation of the difference, and separately; the days, hours, minutes, seconds, total hours, total minutes, and total seconds (see in the examples presented bellow).

/* Function that returns the difference between two date-time
 $start / $end can be in Unix Timestamp, or string containing about any English textual datetime description
 Returns an array containing a string with a textual reprezentation of the difference,
 and separately: the days, hours, minutes, seconds, total hours, total minutes, and total seconds
*/
function diffDateTime($start, $end) {
 // PHP-MySQL Course - http://coursesweb.net/php-mysql/
  // sets to use $start and $end as Unix Timestamp
  if(!is_int($start)) $start = strtotime($start);
  if(!is_int($end)) $end = strtotime($end);

  // if the difference is negative, the hours are from different days, and adds 1 day (in sec.)
  $diff = ($end >= $start) ? $end - $start : 86400 + $end - $start;

  // define the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds in difference
  $d = floor($diff / 86400);
  $h = floor(abs($diff - $d*86400)/3600);
  $m = floor(abs($diff - $d*86400 - $h*3600)/60);
  $s = $diff % 60;

  // sets the words, singular or plural
  $dstr =  ($d == 1) ? ' day ' : ' days ';
  $hstr =  ($h == 1) ? ' hour ' : ' hours ';
  $mstr =  ($m == 1) ? ' minute ' : ' minutes ';
  $sstr =  ($s == 1) ? ' second ' : ' seconds ';

  // setings for the string added in textual reprezentation of the difference
  $sdiff_d = ($d != 0) ? $d.$dstr : '';
  $sdiff_h = ($h != 0) ? $h.$hstr : '';
  $sdiff_m = ($m != 0) ? $m.$mstr : '';

  return array(
   'diff' => $sdiff_d. $sdiff_h. $sdiff_m. $s.$sstr,
   'days' => $d, 'hours'=>$h, 'min'=>$m, 'sec'=>$s,
   'totalhours' => floor($diff/3600), 'totalmin' => floor($diff/60), 'totalsec'=>$diff
  );
}

- Examples usage diffDateTime() function, with various date-time formats:

<?php
// Here adds the diffDateTime() function

$df1 = diffDateTime('8:35:6', '8:55:34');          // difference between 2 times (in hours:min:sec)
$df2 = diffDateTime('07/19/2012 14:10:00', 'now');      // difference between a previous date-time and now
$df3 = diffDateTime('25 August 2012 14:10:00', '18-09-2012 08:25:00');     // difference between 2 date-times
$df4 = diffDateTime(1348012438, 1348029429);      // difference between 2 date-time, with Timestamp

// Test, see the array with data for each difference

var_export($df1);
/*
array (
 'diff' => '20 minutes 28 seconds ',
 'days' => 0, 'hours' => 0, 'min' => 20, 'sec' => 28,
 'totalhours' => 0, 'totalmin' => 20, 'totalsec' => 1228
)
*/

var_export($df2);
/*
array (
 'diff' => '61 days 16 hours 9 minutes 20 seconds ',
 'days' => 72, 'hours' => 16, 'min' => 9, 'sec' => 20,
 'totalhours' => 1744, 'totalmin' => 104649, 'totalsec' => 6278960
)
*/

var_export($df3);
/*
array (
 'diff' => '23 days 18 hours 15 minutes 0 seconds ',
 'days' => 23, 'hours' => 18, 'min' => 15, 'sec' => 0,
 'totalhours' => 570, 'totalmin' => 34215, 'totalsec' => 2052900
)
*/

var_export($df4);
/*
array (
 'diff' => '4 hours 43 minutes 11 seconds ',
 'days' => 0, 'hours' => 4, 'min' => 43, 'sec' => 11,
 'totalhours' => 4, 'totalmin' => 283, 'totalsec' => 16991
)
*/
?>