Finding the number of days between two dates

Question

How to find number of days between two dates using PHP?

Answer 1

Using this simple function. Declare function

<?php
function dateDiff($firstDate,$secondDate){
    $firstDate = strtotime($firstDate);
    $secondDate = strtotime($secondDate);

    $datediff = $firstDate - $secondDate;
    $output = round($datediff / (60 * 60 * 24));
    return $output;
}
?>

and call this function like this where you want

<?php
    echo dateDiff("2018-01-01","2018-12-31");    

// OR

    $firstDate = "2018-01-01";
    $secondDate = "2018-01-01";
    echo dateDiff($firstDate,$secondDate);    
?>

Answer 2

If you're using PHP 5.3 >, this is by far the most accurate way of calculating the difference:

$earlier = new DateTime("2010-07-06");
$later = new DateTime("2010-07-09");

$diff = $later->diff($earlier)->format("%a");

Answer 3

Well, the selected answer is not the most correct one because it will fail outside UTC. Depending on the timezone (list) there could be time adjustments creating days "without" 24 hours, and this will make the calculation (60*60*24) fail.

Here it is an example of it:

date_default_timezone_set('europe/lisbon');
$time1 = strtotime('2016-03-27');
$time2 = strtotime('2016-03-29');
echo floor( ($time2-$time1) /(60*60*24));
 ^-- the output will be **1**

So the correct solution will be using DateTime

date_default_timezone_set('europe/lisbon');
$date1 = new DateTime("2016-03-27");
$date2 = new DateTime("2016-03-29");

echo $date2->diff($date1)->format("%a");
 ^-- the output will be **2**

Answer 4

$start = '2013-09-08';
$end = '2013-09-15';
$diff = (strtotime($end)- strtotime($start))/24/3600; 
echo $diff;

Answer 5

function howManyDays($startDate,$endDate) {

    $date1  = strtotime($startDate." 0:00:00");
    $date2  = strtotime($endDate." 23:59:59");
    $res    =  (int)(($date2-$date1)/86400);        

return $res;
} 

Answer 6

$early_start_date = date2sql($_POST['early_leave_date']);


$date = new DateTime($early_start_date);
$date->modify('+1 day');


$date_a = new DateTime($early_start_date . ' ' . $_POST['start_hr'] . ':' . $_POST['start_mm']);
$date_b = new DateTime($date->format('Y-m-d') . ' ' . $_POST['end_hr'] . ':' . $_POST['end_mm']);

$interval = date_diff($date_a, $date_b);


$time = $interval->format('%h:%i');
$parsed = date_parse($time);
$seconds = $parsed['hour'] * 3600 + $parsed['minute'] * 60;
//        display_error($seconds);

$second3 = $employee_information['shift'] * 60 * 60;

if ($second3 < $seconds)
    display_error(_('Leave time can not be greater than shift time.Please try again........'));
    set_focus('start_hr');
    set_focus('end_hr');
    return FALSE;
}