PHP datetime diff wrong

Question

I am trying to get a difference between two DateTime objects in PHP and the answer seems to be wrong. As you can see the diff() function gives a time difference of 4 hours and 41 minutes, but the time difference is clearly much closer to 7 hours.

$eastern_tz = new DateTimeZone( "US/Eastern" );

$now         = new DateTime( "now", $eastern_tz );
$future_date = new DateTime( $future_date_string ); //'2011-05-11 12:00:00'

$future_date->setTimezone( $eastern_tz );

$interval = $future_date->diff( $now );

var_dump( $now );
var_dump( $future_date );
var_dump( $interval );

return $interval->format( $format ); //"%d days, %h hours, %i minutes, %s seconds"

//DEBUG information

object(DateTime)[483]
  public 'date' => string '2016-06-15 09:18:41' (length=19)
  public 'timezone_type' => int 3
  public 'timezone' => string 'US/Eastern' (length=10)
object(DateTime)[484]
  public 'date' => string '2016-06-15 14:00:00' (length=19)
  public 'timezone_type' => int 3
  public 'timezone' => string 'US/Eastern' (length=10)
object(DateInterval)[479]
  public 'y' => int 0
  public 'm' => int 0
  public 'd' => int 0
  public 'h' => int 4
  public 'i' => int 41
  public 's' => int 19
  public 'weekday' => int 0
  public 'weekday_behavior' => int 0
  public 'first_last_day_of' => int 0
  public 'invert' => int 1
  public 'days' => int 0
  public 'special_type' => int 0
  public 'special_amount' => int 0
  public 'have_weekday_relative' => int 0
  public 'have_special_relative' => int 0

well, your DEBUG info shows that the $future_date value isn't the value you claim to be inserting. Are you sure the value you're providing in $future_date_string is correct? — Tularis, Jun 15 '16 at 13:28
As per the values shown in the debug info, the answer is correct! — Sujeet Sinha, Jun 15 '16 at 13:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '16 at 13:34

When you create $future_date = new DateTime( $future_date_string );, which is the default PHP timezone?

$future_date->setTimezone( $eastern_tz ); is only needed if you render the date or if you import a new string. It's too late for parsing $future_date_string.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 15 '16 at 13:31

use my code it will work for you.

$fromTimes = date('d-m-Y',strtotime('15-06-2016 06:57:27')); //from date and time
$toTimess = date('d-m-Y',strtotime('17-06-2016 10:25:30')); //to date and time
$date_a = new DateTime($toTimess); //converting the date and time
$date_b = new DateTime($fromTimes);
$interval = date_diff($date_a,$date_b); //find difference 
$day = $interval->format('%d')*24; //get day difference
$hours = $interval->format('%h'); // get hour
$mins = $interval->format('%i'); //get mins
if($mins <10)
{ $mins = '0'.$mins; }
echo $total_hours = ($hours + $day).':'.$mins;

hope it will work for you...

PHP datetime diff wrong

2 Answers2