Calculating "time since" is giving me a negative (CLOSEME)

[Adamhumbug]

I have a database field that has a datetime in it of 2023-09-04 18:01:50.000000.

When i try and work out how long ago that was - get a negative number.

I have tried several "borrowed" functions to work this out and none of them are giving me what i expect.

 

This is what i am using now:

function get_time_ago($time_stamp)
{
    $time_difference = strtotime('now') - $time_stamp;

    if ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.242199) {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365.242199 days/year
         * This means that the time difference is 1 year or more
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.242199, 'year');
    } elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 30.4368499) {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 30.4368499 days/month
         * This means that the time difference is 1 month or more
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 30.4368499, 'month');
    } elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24 * 7) {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 7 days/week
         * This means that the time difference is 1 week or more
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24 * 7, 'week');
    } elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60 * 24) {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day
         * This means that the time difference is 1 day or more
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60 * 24, 'day');
    } elseif ($time_difference >= 60 * 60) {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour
         * This means that the time difference is 1 hour or more
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60 * 60, 'hour');
    } else {
        /*
         * 60 seconds/minute
         * This means that the time difference is a matter of minutes
         */
        return get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, 60, 'minute');
    }
}

function get_time_ago_string($time_stamp, $divisor, $time_unit)
{
    $time_difference = strtotime("now") - $time_stamp;
    $time_units      = floor($time_difference / $divisor);

    settype($time_units, 'string');

    if ($time_units === '0') {
        return 'less than 1 ' . $time_unit . ' ago';
    } elseif ($time_units === '1') {
        return '1 ' . $time_unit . ' ago';
    } else {
        /*
         * More than "1" $time_unit. This is the "plural" message.
         */
        // TODO: This pluralizes the time unit, which is done by adding "s" at the end; this will not work for i18n!
        return $time_units . ' ' . $time_unit . 's ago';
    }
}

when i echo what is being fed to this function i see 2023-09-04 18:01:04 and when strtotime i get 1693850464

the function is using now to work out the current time so i dont understand why it thinks my date is in the future.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Adamhumbug

[Adamhumbug]

Hi,

Can this please be closed.

I dont know what i have done but it is now working - i cannot really give any more info.  Could an admin please close this as it is not a helpful post.

[Barand]

Suggestions:

1.

function timeDifference($datetime)
{
    $periods = ['yrs', 'mths', 'days', 'hrs', 'mins', 'secs'];

    $dt1 = new DateTime($datetime);
    $dt2 = new DateTime();

    $d = $dt1->diff($dt2);

    $diffs = array_filter(array_combine($periods, [ $d->y, $d->m, $d->d, $d->h, $d->i, $d->s ] ));

    $res = $d->invert ? '-' : '';
    foreach ($diffs as $k => $v)  {
        $res .= "$v $k ";
    }
    return $res;
}

echo "Now: " . date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . '<br>';          // Now: 2023-09-04 18:54:22
echo timeDifference('2023-09-04 19:00:00.000000');    // -5 mins 37 secs

2. You can also utilise SQL functions

SELECT now() as Now
     , timestampdiff(SECOND, now(), '2023-09-04 19:00:00.000000') as Diff;    
+---------------------+------+
| Now                 | Diff |
+---------------------+------+
| 2023-09-04 19:03:34 | -214 |
+---------------------+------+


SELECT now() as Now
     , timediff('2023-09-04 19:00:00.000000', now()) as diff;
+---------------------+------------------+
| Now                 | diff             |
+---------------------+------------------+
| 2023-09-04 19:08:39 | -00:08:39.000000 |
+---------------------+------------------+

 

[requinix]

7 hours ago, Adamhumbug said:

when i echo what is being fed to this function i see 2023-09-04 18:01:04

You mean $time_stamp is that string value? Well, there's your problem.

Also, the code you have there just isn't very good. Barand's solution(s) are simpler and make more sense.

7 hours ago, Adamhumbug said:

Could an admin please close this as it is not a helpful post.

Might not be helpful to you, but it could be helpful to someone else in the future who has a similar problem.