Calculate number of days ago from timestamp

[ohno]

Hi, I have this code :-

$datestarted = $row['datestarted'];
$datestart=date("l d/m/Y @ H:i:s",strtotime($datestarted)); 

Which is been echo'd like this :-

echo '
<tr align="center"'.$rowbackground.'>
<td>'.$datestart.'</td>							
<td align="center">
';

So for example I get this output :-Sunday 18/04/2021 @ 10:45:26

The data in the DB for the above is stored like this :-2021-04-18 10:45:26

 

What I'd like to do is also echo how many days ago this date was, all of the examples I've tried don't seem to work though?

[Barand]

Take your pick, sql or php solution?

$theDate = '2021-04-18 10:45:26';

$d1 = new DateTime($theDate);
$elapsed = $d1->diff(new DateTime())->days;
echo $elapsed;                                 //--> 23

or
 

SELECT datestarted
     , datediff(CURDATE(), datestarted) as elapsed
FROM ...

 

[ohno]

Works a treat, thanks

[ohno]

On a similar note, can the date string be converted to minutes rather than days? (in PHP that is).

 

I did try $elapsed = $d1->diff(new DateTime())->i ;

[ohno]

This works but doesn't add any hours outside of the whole days :-

$elapsed = $d1->diff(new DateTime())->days * 24 * 60;

 

eg, if the elapsed time is 7 days two hours it gives 10080 minutes instead of 10200.

 

[gizmola]

Take a look at the manual page for the Datetime::diff method.  What you are returned is a "DateInterval" object.

All you need to do is call the format method and utilize the appropriate format string -- it has already computed an internal representation of the interval between the 2 dates, and you don't want or need to do additional math to get this represented in days/hours/minutes etc.  Just look at the format strings.

[ohno]

I'll take another look, none of the examples I seemed to find showed how this could be done though. Thanks

[Barand]

the properties of the DateInterval object that you will need are

->days
->h
->i

so you will have some calculation but it's not rocket science.

Note there is also a "d" property but that is the number of days as in "Difference = 5 months 3 days 6 hrs"