How to obtain, increment, and compare datetime in PHP? - php

Question

I am developing a quiz site and there is time for x min to answer the quiz. So when user clicks on start quiz link the starttime (current time at this instant) is recored in session. Also the endtime (start_time+ 30 min) is recorded in session and every time he submits a answer the current time is compared with the quiz end time. Only if the current time is less than end_time the answer should be accepted.
How can I get the currentdatetime?
How can I add x minutes to current this datetime?
How can I compare (<=) datetime ?
I think we should use date time. Is it right?

Answer 1

PHP measures time as seconds since Unix epoch (1st January 1970). This makes it really easy to work with, since everything just a single number.
To get the current time, use: time()
For basic maths like adding 30 minutes, just convert your interval into seconds and add:
time() + 30 * 60 // (30 * 60 ==> 30 minutes)
And since they're just numbers, just do regular old integer comparison:
$oldTime = $_SESSION['startTime'];
$now = time();
if ($now < $oldTime + 30 * 60) {
//expired
}
If you need to do more complicated things like finding the date of "next tuesday" or something, look at strtotime(), but you shouldn't need it in this case.

Answer 2

use php builtin functions to get time:
<?php
$currentTimeStamp = time(); // number of seconds since 1970, returns Integer value
$dateStringForASpecificSecond = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $currentTimeStamp);
?>
for your application that needs to compare those times, using the timestamp is more appropriate.
<?php
$start = time();
$end = $start + (30 * 60); // 30 minutes
$_SESSION['end_time'] = $end;
?>
in the page where the quiz is submitted:
<?php
$now = time();
if ( $now <= $_SESSION['end_time'] ) {
// ok!
}
?>

Answer 3

Use the time() function to get a UNIX timestamp, which is really just a large integer.
The number returned by time() is the number of seconds since some date (like January 1, 1970), so to add $x minutes to it you do something like (time() + ($x*60)).
Since UNIX timestamps are just numbers, you can compare them with the usual comparison operators for numbers (< <= > >= ==)

Answer 4

time() will give you the current time in seconds since 1/1/1970 (an integer), which looks like it should be good.
To add x minutes, you'd just need to add x*60 to that, and you can compare it like any other two integers.
Source: http://us3.php.net/time

Answer 5

This is an old question but I wanted to provide an answer based on the PHP 5.2 DateTime class which I feel is much easier to use and much more versatile than any previous functions.
So how can i get the currentdatetime?
You can create a new DateTime object like this:
$currentTime = new DateTime();
But at this point, $currentTime is a datetime object and must be converted to a string in order to store it in a database or output it.
$currentTime = $currentTime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
echo $currentTime;
Outputs 2014-05-10 21:14:06
How can i add x minutes tocurrent this datetime?
You can add x minutes with the modify method:
$currentTime = new DateTime();
$addedMinutes = $currentTime->modify('+10 minutes');
echo $addedMinutes;
Outputs 2014-05-10 21:24:06
How can i comapare (<=) datetime ?
With the DateTime class, you can not only easily compare datetime objects, you can get the difference between them.
$currentTime = new DateTime('2014-05-10 21:14:06');
$addDays = $currentTime->modify('+10 days');
To compare
if ($currentTime >= $addDays) {
//do something//
}
$diffTime = new DateTime('2014-05-10 21:14:06');
$diff = $addDays->diff($diffTime);
$diff = $diff->format('There are %d days difference.');
echo $diff;
Outputs There are 10 days difference.