Weird result when taking date from mysql - php

Question

I want to substract 2 dates and take the result in minutes like the code bellow gives me the answer i want.
$to_time = strtotime("2017-03-27 17:31:40");
$from_time = strtotime("2017-03-27 18:32:40");
echo "sunolo1: ".round(abs($to_time - $from_time) / 60,2). " minute";
But when i try to retrieve dynamically date from mysql using php it doesnt work it returns 0. (date in my table is in timestamp)
$d = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone("Europe/Athens"));
$dateM = $d->format("Y-m-j H:i:s");
$result = mysqli_prepare($con, "SELECT date FROM mytable WHERE id= ? ");
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($result, 'i', $ids);
mysqli_stmt_execute($result);
mysqli_stmt_bind_result($result, $ddd);
while(mysqli_stmt_fetch($result)){
$sunolo_krathshs = round(abs($ddd - $dateM) / 60,2);
echo "sunoloo: ".$sunolo_krathshs;
}

Answer 1

You need to parse the value of $ddd to a DateTime object, since the easiest way would be to compare DateTime objects.
$date = new DateTime();
$ddd = $date->setTimestamp($ddd);
$sunolo_krathshs = round(abs($ddd - $d) / 60,2);

Answer 2

Please check this.
<?php
$datetime1 = new DateTime("2017-03-27 17:31:40");
$datetime2 = new DateTime("2017-03-27 18:32:40");
$interval = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);
$hours = $interval->format('%h');
$minutes = $interval->format('%i');
echo 'Diff. in minutes is: '.($hours * 60 + $minutes);
?>

Answer 3

Use strtotime function while passing the date values for calculation. Something like this:
$sunolo_krathshs = round(abs(strtotime($dateM) - strtotime($ddd)) / 60,2);

Answer 4

Using the DateTime class this can be quite simple
$result = mysqli_prepare($con, "SELECT date FROM mytable WHERE id= ? ");
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($result, 'i', $ids);
mysqli_stmt_execute($result);
mysqli_stmt_bind_result($result, $ddd);
$to_time = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone("Europe/Athens"));
while(mysqli_stmt_fetch($result)){
// probably want UTC as date times are stored on the db in UTC
// but you may need to experiment with timezones here
$from_date = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', $ddd, new DateTimeZone("UTC"));
echo round(abs($to_date->getTimestamp() - $from_date->getTimestamp()) / 60,2). " minute";
}

Answer 5

There is no assigment value operation for variable $ids...