Question

So in my database I got a datetime field, filled with e.g. 2012-09-19 11:20:33.
Now I’m trying to fetch the datetime.

$blabla = $something->getDatetime();

After that I create a new DateTime, which represents the time now

$now = new \DateTime("now");

And after that I want to subtract them like this (but it doesn’t work)?

$test1 = strtotime($blabla);
$test2 = strtotime($now);
$diff = $test2 - $test1; 
echo $diff;

My aim is to subtract the persisted datetime in the database from the time now…the result should be displayed in seconds…so 2012-09-19 11:22:22 – 2012-09-19 11:20:22 equals 120 (seconds).

I also tried to persist a unix timestamp into my database but unfortunately the field type timestamp doesn’t exist.

Answer 1

If you want the answer displayed in seconds, then just subtract the timestamps:-

$blabla = $something->getDatetime();
$now = new DateTime();
$seconds = $now->getTimestamp() - $blabla->getTimestamp();