PHP get days between start-date and end-date

Question

If I have two variables $startDate="YYYYmmdd" and $endDate="YYYYmmdd", how can I get the number of days between them please?

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you are using PHP 5.3, you can use the new DateTime class:

$startDate = new DateTime("20101013");
$endDate = new DateTime("20101225");

$interval = $startDate->diff($endDate);

echo $interval->days . " until Christmas"; // echos 73 days until Christmas

If not, you will need to use strtotime:

$startDate = strtotime("20101013");
$endDate = strtotime("20101225");

$interval = $endDate - $startDate;
$days = floor($interval / (60 * 60 * 24));

echo $days . " until Christmas"; // echos 73 days until Christmas

Answer 2

<?php
function days($date1, $date2) {
    $date1 = strtotime($date1);
    $date2 = strtotime($date2);
    return ($date2 - $date1) / (24 * 60 * 60);
}
$date1 = '20100820';
$date2 = '20100930';
echo days($date1, $date2);
?>

Answer 3

$DayDiff = strtotime("2010-01-12")-strtotime("2009-12-30");
echo  date('z', $DayDiff)." Days";

this one should be precise and usable with PHP < 5.2

Answer 4

<?php   
 $time1=strtotime($startDate);
    $time2=strtotime($endDate);
    $daycount=floor(($time2-$time1)/ 86400);
?>

Answer 5

Here is the sample code

$startDate = mktime(0,0,0,1,1,2010); 
$endDate = mktime(0,0,0,12,1,2010); 

$dateDiff = $date1 - $date2;
$fullDays = floor($dateDiff/(60*60*24));
echo "Differernce is $fullDays days"; 

Answer 6

The easiest way I have found to get the number of days between them is by converting the Start and End dates to Unix timestamps and doing an subtract on them.

Then if you want to format the date convert it back using the PHP date function.

Answer 7

Here's my approach, based upon a brutal search in most cases, just because divisions by seconds (for weeks, months, years) may not return precise results, as while working with leap years for example.

<?php
function datediff( $timeformat, $startdate, $enddate )
{
    $unix_startdate = strtotime( $startdate ) ;
    $unix_enddate = strtotime( $enddate ) ;
    $min_date = min($unix_startdate, $unix_enddate);
    $max_date = max($unix_startdate, $unix_enddate);
    $Sd = date( "d", $unix_startdate ) ;
    $Sm = date( "m", $unix_startdate ) ;
    $Sy = date( "Y", $unix_startdate ) ;
    $Ed = date( "d", $unix_enddate ) ;
    $Em = date( "m", $unix_enddate ) ;
    $Ey = date( "Y", $unix_enddate ) ;

    $unixtimediff = $unix_enddate - $unix_startdate ;
    if ( $unixtimediff <= 0 ) return -1 ;

    switch( strtolower( $timeformat ) )
    {
         case "d": // days
         $divisor = 3600 * 24 ;
         return floor( $unixtimediff / $divisor ) + 1 ; 
         break ;
         case "w": // weeks
         $i = 0 ;
         while ( ( $min_date = strtotime("+1 DAY", $min_date) ) <= $max_date) $i++;
         return floor( $i / 7 ) ;
         break ;
         case "m": // months
         $i = $Sd != $Ed && $Sm != $Em ? 1 : 0 ;
         while ( ( $min_date = strtotime("+1 MONTH", $min_date) ) <= $max_date) $i++;
         return $i ;
         break ;
         case "q": // quaterly (3 months)
         $i = $Sd != $Ed && $Sm != $Em ? 1 : 0 ;
         while ( ( $min_date = strtotime("+3 MONTH", $min_date) ) <= $max_date) $i++;
         return $i ;
         break ;
         case "y": // year
         $i = $Sd != $Ed && $Sm != $Em ? 1 : 0 ;
         while ( ( $min_date = strtotime("+1 MONTH", $min_date) ) <= $max_date) $i++;
         return floor( $i / 12 ) ;
         break ;
    }
}

$startdate = "2014-01-01" ;
$enddate = "2015-12-31" ;
$formats = array( "d" => "days", "w" => "weeks", "m" => "months", "q" => "quaterly", "y" => "years" ) ;
foreach( $formats AS $K => $F )
echo "From $startdate to $enddate in $F format: ". datediff( "$K",  $startdate, $enddate )."<br>" ;

?>