Fatal error: Call to undefined method DateTime::diff()

Question

When my code is moved from local server to live server it shows an error like this :

Fatal error: Call to undefined method DateTime::diff()

Code:

<?php      
  date_default_timezone_set('Asia/Calcutta');
  $sFinalDate   = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($sDate));
  $sNow         = new DateTime();
  $iRemain      = new DateTime( $sFinalDate.$sTime);
  $iInterval    = $iRemain->diff($sNow);
  $sTimeCounter = $iInterval->format("%h: %i :%s ");
  $sCalculate   = $iInterval->format("%a:%h:%i");
?>

@SJP you really, really should be looking to update to PHP 5.3 (or better) as soon as practically possible. PHP4 had an end of life announcement on the 13th July 2007. That was NINE YEARS AGO — Martin

Abhijit Jagtap Abhijit Jagtap · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-06T05:06:26

Though I found a number of people who ran into the issue of 5.2 and lower not supporting this function, I was unable to find any solid examples to get around it. Therefore I hope this can help some others:

<?php 
function get_timespan_string($older, $newer) { 
  $Y1 = $older->format('Y'); 
  $Y2 = $newer->format('Y'); 
  $Y = $Y2 - $Y1; 

  $m1 = $older->format('m'); 
  $m2 = $newer->format('m'); 
  $m = $m2 - $m1; 

  $d1 = $older->format('d'); 
  $d2 = $newer->format('d'); 
  $d = $d2 - $d1; 

  $H1 = $older->format('H'); 
  $H2 = $newer->format('H'); 
  $H = $H2 - $H1; 

  $i1 = $older->format('i'); 
  $i2 = $newer->format('i'); 
  $i = $i2 - $i1; 

  $s1 = $older->format('s'); 
  $s2 = $newer->format('s'); 
  $s = $s2 - $s1; 

  if($s < 0) { 
    $i = $i -1; 
    $s = $s + 60; 
  } 
  if($i < 0) { 
    $H = $H - 1; 
    $i = $i + 60; 
  } 
  if($H < 0) { 
    $d = $d - 1; 
    $H = $H + 24; 
  } 
  if($d < 0) { 
    $m = $m - 1; 
    $d = $d + get_days_for_previous_month($m2, $Y2); 
  } 
  if($m < 0) { 
    $Y = $Y - 1; 
    $m = $m + 12; 
  } 
  $timespan_string = create_timespan_string($Y, $m, $d, $H, $i, $s); 
  return $timespan_string; 
} 

function get_days_for_previous_month($current_month, $current_year) { 
  $previous_month = $current_month - 1; 
  if($current_month == 1) { 
    $current_year = $current_year - 1; //going from January to previous December 
    $previous_month = 12; 
  } 
  if($previous_month == 11 || $previous_month == 9 || $previous_month == 6 || $previous_month == 4) { 
    return 30; 
  } 
  else if($previous_month == 2) { 
    if(($current_year % 4) == 0) { //remainder 0 for leap years 
      return 29; 
    } 
    else { 
      return 28; 
    } 
  } 
  else { 
    return 31; 
  } 
} 

function create_timespan_string($Y, $m, $d, $H, $i, $s) 
{ 
  $timespan_string = ''; 
  $found_first_diff = false; 
  if($Y >= 1) { 
    $found_first_diff = true; 
    $timespan_string .= pluralize($Y, 'year').' '; 
  } 
  if($m >= 1 || $found_first_diff) { 
    $found_first_diff = true; 
    $timespan_string .= pluralize($m, 'month').' '; 
  } 
  if($d >= 1 || $found_first_diff) { 
    $found_first_diff = true; 
    $timespan_string .= pluralize($d, 'day').' '; 
  } 
  if($H >= 1 || $found_first_diff) { 
    $found_first_diff = true; 
    $timespan_string .= pluralize($H, 'hour').' '; 
  } 
  if($i >= 1 || $found_first_diff) { 
    $found_first_diff = true; 
    $timespan_string .= pluralize($i, 'minute').' '; 
  } 
  if($found_first_diff) { 
    $timespan_string .= 'and '; 
  } 
  $timespan_string .= pluralize($s, 'second'); 
  return $timespan_string; 
} 

function pluralize( $count, $text ) 
{ 
  return $count . ( ( $count == 1 ) ? ( " $text" ) : ( " ${text}s" ) ); 
} 
?>

source http://php.net/manual/en/function.date-diff.php if you using php 5.3 then there would be another issue working above example on php>=5.3

Fatal error: Call to undefined method DateTime::diff()

1 Answers