Calculating Date Differences Help Needed

Ralph Freshour

What's a good way to calculate the number of days between two dates in
the following format:

2003-07-15
2003-08-02

I've looked at the PHP date functions but I'm still a bit lost...

Jul 16 '05 #1

Ralph Freshour

Yeah, I follow that - but I end up with a unix epoch date - how can I
determine how many days diff that represents? In other words, per
your suggestion I can get date1 and date2 and determine via mktime the
diff - but I still need to know how many days diff that is???

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 03:18:26 GMT, Blaine HIlton
<bl***************@verizon.net> wrote:

What you need to do is check the mktime() function at
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php.

Basiclly you would use mktime and send the function the date and call
that date1 and then another mktime and call that date2. Then just
subtract. mktime() will give you the unix epoch date.
Also for a good example check out
http://www.befriend.com/code_gallery..._elapsed_time/, however
there are I believe 2 errors where a division sign should be a
multiplication.

Mine looks like:

//$divider['months'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 / 12 );
$divider['months'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 12 ); // cheanged
this one too
// $divider['weeks'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 / 7 );
$divider['weeks'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 ); // I changed / to *

and can be seen in action at http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0529.php.

Jul 16 '05 #2

Blaine HIlton

I would say first check out the 3 links that I gave:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php
http://www.befriend.com/code_gallery..._elapsed_time/
http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0529.php

If you read through there you will have it working. Once you have the
time from epoch for each date you subtract. That gives you the
seconds, then times by 60 for minutes, then 60 more for hours then 24
for days.

--
Blaine Hilton
http://www.webcalc.net/
On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 06:00:32 GMT, Ralph Freshour <ra***@primemail.com>
wrote:

Yeah, I follow that - but I end up with a unix epoch date - how can I
determine how many days diff that represents? In other words, per
your suggestion I can get date1 and date2 and determine via mktime the
diff - but I still need to know how many days diff that is???

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 03:18:26 GMT, Blaine HIlton
<bl***************@verizon.net> wrote:

What you need to do is check the mktime() function at
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php.

Basiclly you would use mktime and send the function the date and call
that date1 and then another mktime and call that date2. Then just
subtract. mktime() will give you the unix epoch date.
Also for a good example check out
http://www.befriend.com/code_gallery..._elapsed_time/, however
there are I believe 2 errors where a division sign should be a
multiplication.

Mine looks like:

//$divider['months'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 / 12 );
$divider['months'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 12 ); // cheanged
this one too
// $divider['weeks'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 / 7 );
$divider['weeks'] = ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 ); // I changed / to *

and can be seen in action at http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0529.php.

Jul 16 '05 #3

Ralph Freshour

I did check out the links you gave me - I understand the epoch number
now - but when I do the math to get the number of days difference I
get a huge number:

// get todays date
$now = time();
print "<br>now: $now";
$then = mktime(0,0,0,8,15,2003);
print "<br>then: $then";
$diff = $now - $then;
print "<br>diff: $diff";
$min = $diff * 60;
print "<br>min: $min";
$hours = $min * 60;
print "<br>hours: $hours";
$days = $hours * 24;
print "<br>days: $days";

$days is a huge number and there is not that many days diff between
time() and august 15, 2003 - what am I not understanding here?
On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:23:52 GMT, Blaine HIlton
<bl***************@verizon.net> wrote:

I would say first check out the 3 links that I gave:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php
http://www.befriend.com/code_gallery..._elapsed_time/
http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0529.php

If you read through there you will have it working. Once you have the
time from epoch for each date you subtract. That gives you the
seconds, then times by 60 for minutes, then 60 more for hours then 24
for days.

Jul 16 '05 #4

Joshua Ghiloni

Ralph Freshour wrote:

I did check out the links you gave me - I understand the epoch number
now - but when I do the math to get the number of days difference I
get a huge number:

// get todays date
$now = time();
print "<br>now: $now";
$then = mktime(0,0,0,8,15,2003);
print "<br>then: $then";
$diff = $now - $then;
print "<br>diff: $diff";
$min = $diff * 60;
print "<br>min: $min";
$hours = $min * 60;
print "<br>hours: $hours";
$days = $hours * 24;
print "<br>days: $days";

$days is a huge number and there is not that many days diff between
time() and august 15, 2003 - what am I not understanding here?

What you're not understanding is the fact that his math was wrong ;) If
you've got 60 seconds in a minute, then there are 60 / 60 = 1 minute in
a minute, not 60 * 60 = 3600 minutes in a minute. Change all those * to
/ and it should work.

Jul 16 '05 #5

Ralph Freshour

I got it - I finally got it to work...

Thanks...

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:23:52 GMT, Blaine HIlton
<bl***************@verizon.net> wrote:

I would say first check out the 3 links that I gave:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php
http://www.befriend.com/code_gallery..._elapsed_time/
http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0529.php

If you read through there you will have it working. Once you have the
time from epoch for each date you subtract. That gives you the
seconds, then times by 60 for minutes, then 60 more for hours then 24
for days.

Jul 16 '05 #6

Blaine HIlton

Yes sorry about that / is a big difference then ;-)

--
Blaine

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 10:35:48 -0400, Joshua Ghiloni
<jd***@SPAM.ME.AND.DIE.cwru.edu> wrote:

Ralph Freshour wrote:

I did check out the links you gave me - I understand the epoch number
now - but when I do the math to get the number of days difference I
get a huge number:

// get todays date
$now = time();
print "<br>now: $now";
$then = mktime(0,0,0,8,15,2003);
print "<br>then: $then";
$diff = $now - $then;
print "<br>diff: $diff";
$min = $diff * 60;
print "<br>min: $min";
$hours = $min * 60;
print "<br>hours: $hours";
$days = $hours * 24;
print "<br>days: $days";

$days is a huge number and there is not that many days diff between
time() and august 15, 2003 - what am I not understanding here?

What you're not understanding is the fact that his math was wrong ;) If
you've got 60 seconds in a minute, then there are 60 / 60 = 1 minute in
a minute, not 60 * 60 = 3600 minutes in a minute. Change all those * to
/ and it should work.

Jul 16 '05 #7