Hey, Thanks for replying. I did find an easier way, but only after going through what you sent me...the way i found was using substr. I do read the manual, but not the online one, I have a downloaded windows helpfile copy, its much faster and easier to access but one disadvantage is...it does not have the user comments. Cheers, -Ryan
http://Bestwebhosters.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ryan A" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 1:21 AM Subject: Re: [PHP] comparing dates > On Monday, February 2, 2004, at 10:04 AM, Ryan A wrote: > > > which gives me two 14 numberic characters strings like: > > 20040202091212 > > 20040201070500 > > > > How do I compare it to display something like this to the visitor: > > You have $xdays day/s, $xhours hours and $xmins minutes before your > > account > > expires > > > > Been hitting the manual, but have either been searching in the wrong > > places > > or....? > > I think I will have to use "explode","strtotime" on this...but am not > > sure. > > Ryan, > > explode() won't help (nothing to explode on) > strtotime() won't help, as it can't work directly with the above date > format > > There's a decent comment on http://php.net/strtotime (RTFM????) by > 'tobi at schluer dot de' > "...You can read the db using the UNIX_TIMESTAMP()-function, which > returns the timestamp from the date(time) field. So you don't need to > convert the dates in PHP, but let SQL do that job." > > So, you can do it with MySQL. Otherwise, a function like this in PHP > would do it: > > <? > function mysqlToUnixStamp($in) > { > $y = substr($in,0,4); > $m = substr($in,4,2); > $d = substr($in,6,2); > $h = substr($in,8,2); > $i = substr($in,10,2); > $s = substr($in,12,2); > return mktime($h,$i,$s,$m,$d,$y); > } > ?> > > So then pass your mysql stamps to it like this: > > <? > $d1 = '20040202091212'; > $d2 = '20040201070500'; > > $d1 = mysqlToUnixStamp($d1); > $d2 = mysqlToUnixStamp($d2); > ?> > > An you can then compare them (for example): > > <? > if($d1 >= $d2) { /*something*/ } > ?> > > Or find the difference in seconds: > > <? > $diff = $d1 - $d2; > ?> > > Converting this into a human readable "$xdays day/s, $xhours hours and > $xmins minutes" is not exactly easy, but here's some hints for you to > build on: > > <? > function secondsToString($in) > { > $secsInDay = (60 * 60) * 24; > $secsInHour = 60 * 60; > $secsInMin = 60; > $ret = ''; > > if($in > $secsInDay) > { > $days = round($in / $secsInDay); > $remainder = $in % $secsInDay; > $ret .= "{$days} days, "; > } > > if($remainder > $secsInHour) > { > $hours = round($remainder / $secsInHour); > $remainder = $in % $secsInHour; > $ret .= "{$hours} hours, "; > } > > if($remainder > $secsInMin) > { > $mins = round($remainder / $secsInMin); > $remainder = $in % $secsInMin; > $ret .= "{$mins} mins, "; > } > > // strip off last ', ' > $ret = substr($ret,0,-2); > > return $ret; > } > > // converting to human readable > $timeLeft = secondsToString($diff); > > // print to screen > echo "you have {$timeLeft} remain on your membership"; > ?> > > > Out of all this, what you need to look-up in the manual and understand > is the modulus (%), an arithmetic operator & substr(). > > http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.arithmetic.php > http://www.php.net/substr > > > Justin French > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > > -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
