Get interval seconds between two datetime in PHP?

Question

2009-10-05 18:11:08

2009-10-05 18:07:13

This should generate 235,how to do it ?

Answer 1

For those worrying about the limitations of using timestamps (i.e. using dates before 1970 and beyond 2038), you can simply calculate the difference in seconds like so:

$start = new DateTime('2009-10-05 18:11:08');
$end = new DateTime('2009-10-05 18:07:13');
$diff = $end->diff($start);

$seconds = ($diff->format('%r%a') * 24 * 60 * 60)
    + $diff->h * 60 * 60
    + $diff->i * 60
    + $diff->s;

echo $seconds; // output: 235

Wrote a blog post for those interested in reading more.

Answer 2

With DateTime objects, you can do it like this:

$date = new DateTime( '2009-10-05 18:07:13' );
$date2 = new DateTime( '2009-10-05 18:11:08' );

$diffInSeconds = $date2->getTimestamp() - $date->getTimestamp();