How Can I Calculate and Format the Difference Between Two Dates in PHP?

Determining Date Differences in PHP

To calculate the difference between two dates and express it in a specific format (e.g., years, months, days), an effective method in PHP involves employing DateTime and DateInterval objects.

The following example demonstrates how to utilize these objects:

$date1 = new DateTime("2007-03-24");
$date2 = new DateTime("2009-06-26");
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
echo "difference " . $interval->y . " years, " . $interval->m." months, ".$interval->d." days ";

This code will output the difference between the two dates in the specified format: "2 years, 3 months and 2 days."

Furthermore, PHP also provides a concise way to obtain the total number of days between two dates without breaking it down into individual units:

echo "difference " . $interval->days . " days ";

For detailed reference, consult the PHP DateTime::diff manual.

Additionally, from PHP 5.2.2 onwards, DateTime objects can be directly compared using operators:

$date1 = new DateTime("now");
$date2 = new DateTime("tomorrow");

var_dump($date1 == $date2); // bool(false)
var_dump($date1 < $date2);  // bool(true)
var_dump($date1 > $date2);  // bool(false)

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