In this article, we will see how to calculate the difference between 2 dates in PHP, along with understanding its implementation through the examples. Given two dates ie., start_date and end_date & we need to find the difference between the two dates.
Consider the below example:
Input: start_date: 2016-06-01 22:45:00 end_date: 2018-09-21 10:44:01 Output: 2 years, 3 months, 21 days, 11 hours, 59 minutes, 1 seconds Explanation: The difference of 2 dates will give the date in complete format.Method 1: Using date_diff() Function
This function is used to find the difference between two dates. This function will return a DateInterval object on the success and returns FALSE on failure.
Example: This example illustrates the use of the date_diff() function to calculate the difference between the 2 dates.
PHP
<?php
$datetime1 = date_create('2016-06-01');
$datetime2 = date_create('2018-09-21');
$interval = date_diff($datetime1, $datetime2);
echo $interval->format('%R%y years %m months');
?>
Output:
+2 years 3 monthsMethod 2: To use the date-time mathematical formula to find the difference between two dates. It returns the years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds between two specified dates.
Example: In this example, we will be using the date-time mathematical formula to calculate the difference between the dates that will be returned in years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds.
PHP
<?php
$date1 = strtotime("2016-06-01 22:45:00");
$date2 = strtotime("2018-09-21 10:44:01");
$diff = abs($date2 - $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));
$minutes = floor(($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 - $minutes*60));
printf("%d years, %d months, %d days, %d hours, "
. "%d minutes, %d seconds", $years, $months,
$days, $hours, $minutes, $seconds);
?>
Output:
2 years, 3 months, 21 days, 11 hours, 59 minutes, 1 secondsMethod 3: This method is used to get the total number of days between two specified dates.
PHP
<?php
$start_date = strtotime("2018-06-08");
$end_date = strtotime("2018-09-19");
echo "Difference between two dates: "
. ($end_date - $start_date)/60/60/24;
?>
Output:
Difference between two dates: 103PHP is a server-side scripting language designed specifically for web development. You can learn PHP from the ground up by following this PHP Tutorial and PHP Examples.