Need help displaying time frame (months, weeks, days) between two dates in PHP

[techman41973]

I'm looking to develop PHP code for the following application, similar to a countdown timer.
  I want to compute the difference between the current date and the date of a future event (happens to be 1/7/2014).
  Easy to do. But I want to display the difference or time between the current date and this future event as follows
    ----  Event is x months and y weeks and z days from today
   I believe the best approach is to start with the datediff function, but it's the display output portion that gets tricky
   I would appreciate some help or direction. Thanks      
 

 

[Psycho]

Here's a function I had lying around:

 

//Function to determine a textual representation of the time between two events
function time_since ($startTimeStr, $allUnits=false, $endTimeStr=false)
{
    //Set start and end times in seconds
    $endTimeInt = (!$endTimeStr) ? time() : strtotime($endTimeStr);
    $startTimeInt = strtotime($startTimeStr);

    if($endTimeInt===false || $startTimeInt===false) { return false; }
    //Calculate the difference
    $timeDiff = $endTimeInt - $startTimeInt; //Get the difference in seconds
    $measurements = array (
        'year'   => 31536000,
        'month'  => 2592000,
        'week'   => 604800,
        'day'    => 86400,
        'hour'   => 3600,
        'minute' => 60,
        'second' => 1
    );

    $returnValues;
    foreach ($measurements as $label => $measurement)
    {
        if ($timeDiff >= $measurement)
        {
            $units = floor($timeDiff/$measurement);
            $plural = ($units>1) ? 's' : '';
            $returnString = $units . ' ' . $label . $plural;
            if(!$allUnits) { return $returnString; }
            $timeDiff -= $units * $measurement;
            $returnValues[] = $returnString;
        }
    }
    if(!count($returnValues)) { return false; }
    return implode(', ', $returnValues);
}

## USAGE
$postedDateTime = '2012-09-24 13:14:02';

echo 'This post was updated ' . time_since($postedDateTime) . ' ago';
// This post was updated 2 days ago

echo '<br><br>This post was updated ' . time_since($postedDateTime, true) . ' ago';
// This post was updated 2 days, 19 minutes, 33 seconds ago

[Barand]

try

$d1 = new DateTime();  // now
$d2 = new DateTime('2014-07-01');

$diff = $d2->diff($d1);

list($y,$m,$d) = explode('-', $diff->format('%y-%m-%d'));

$months = $y*12 + $m;
$weeks = floor($d/7);
$days = $d%7;

printf('%d months %d weeks %d days', $months, $weeks, $days);    // 14 months 1 weeks 4 days

Edited April 18, 2013 by Barand

[techman41973]

Barand and Psycho, I greatly appreciate you both sharing your scripts.

I tried them both and I've decided on Barand's as its simpler and a bit more accurate for my application.

One more question, as I'm still developing my PHP skills.

  I'd like the printf statement  to display  "week" when weeks = 1 instead of "weeks" - for gramatacal correctness.

    the same also for months

  I'd also like the printf statement to not display the word weeks if weeks = 0

     same for months.

    I would greatly appeciate some direction on the syntax to do this.

   Thanks again to you boith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

try

$d1 = new DateTime();  // now
$d2 = new DateTime('2014-07-01');

$diff = $d2->diff($d1);

list($y,$m,$d) = explode('-', $diff->format('%y-%m-%d'));

$months = $y*12 + $m;
$weeks = floor($d/7);
$days = $d%7;

printf('%d months %d weeks %d days', $months, $weeks, $days);    // 14 months 1 weeks 4 days

 

[alandavid]

Hello,

 

I am also new in PHP development i have same issue thank you so much for sharing this post. now i got it.

[Barand]

try

if ($months) {
    printf('%d month%s ', $months, $months>1?'s':'');
}
if ($weeks) {
    printf('%d week%s ', $weeks, $weeks>1?'s':'');
}
if ($days) {
    printf('%d day%s ', $days, $days>1?'s':'');
}

[techman41973]

Another related question, when the countdown reaches zero, how do I prevent it from showing a negatve number.

Once the countdown reaches zero, I want to show a blank line or some specific text. Thanks again!

[Barand]

DateTime::diff() has an optional 2nd argument which enables you to detect negative differences

 

http://php.net/manual/en/datetime.diff.php