Question

The event returns a standardized timestamp in the format of ‘Sat Oct 25 21:55:29 +0000 2008’ How can I compare this with the current time in PHP so that it gives me the result in a form like ‘It has been 15 minutes!’ or ‘It has been three days!’ Also, how can I get the current time?

Answer 1

First convert that string to a UNIX timestamp using strtotime():

$event_time = strtotime('Sat Oct 25 21:55:29 +0000 2008'); 

Then to get the current UNIX timestamp use time():

$current_time = time(); 

Then get the number of seconds between those timestamps:

$difference = $current_time - $event_time; 

And finally use division to convert the number of seconds into number of days or hours or whatever:

$hours_difference = $difference / 60 / 60; $days_difference = $difference / 60 / 60 / 24; 

For more information on calculating relative time, see How do I calculate relative time?.