Question

What is the best (date format independent way) in PHP to calculate difference in days between two dates in specified format.

I tried the following function:

function get_date_offset($start_date, $end_date) {   $start_time = strtotime($start_date);   $end_time = strtotime($end_date);   return round(($end_time-$start_time)/(3600*24)); } 

It works ok on linux box, but when running under windows strtotime returns ”.

EDIT:

Input date is in mm/dd/yyyy format, but I would like to make it accept $format as a parameter.

I need only difference in days.

Answer 1

If you do not want or you cannot use Zend Framework or Pear package try this function i hope this would help:

function dateDifference($date1, $date2) {     $d1 = (is_string($date1) ? strtotime($date1) : $date1);     $d2 = (is_string($date2) ? strtotime($date2) : $date2);      $diff_secs = abs($d1 - $d2);     $base_year = min(date('Y', $d1), date('Y', $d2));      $diff = mktime(0, 0, $diff_secs, 1, 1, $base_year);      return array     (         'years'         => abs(substr(date('Ymd', $d1) - date('Ymd', $d2), 0, -4)),         'months_total'  => (date('Y', $diff) - $base_year) * 12 + date('n', $diff) - 1,         'months'        => date('n', $diff) - 1,         'days_total'    => floor($diff_secs / (3600 * 24)),         'days'          => date('j', $diff) - 1,         'hours_total'   => floor($diff_secs / 3600),         'hours'         => date('G', $diff),         'minutes_total' => floor($diff_secs / 60),         'minutes'       => (int) date('i', $diff),         'seconds_total' => $diff_secs,         'seconds'       => (int) date('s', $diff)     ); }