Time( ); i need help from the PROs

eojlin

Hi,

i just need a quick suggestion on how to create a timer script in PHP: of course you'll be using Sessions for this. well, start time is from an initial page and then end time is on another.

i tried placing the current time() value in a session variable. then on the other page, i tried to get the new time() value and subtract it by the time() value from the session variable.

testing this script for a couple of minutes; i get the correct number of minutes and seconds for the output, but it also gives me an initial eight hour and one day value. where did that one day and 8 hours come from and how do i get rid of them. (btw, i know that time() starts at a value equal to January 1, 1970. i just assumed that it started at 12:00am. this im not sure if i'm right)

🙂

Thanks in advance!

Nil-Joe

if you're curious on where i'm going to use this or why i need this, well, it's for the online examination application i'm developing.

kparker

I don't quite follow what you mean by "an initial value". Subtracting two values returned by time() directly gives you the number of seconds between those two timestamps. The origin-date or epoch should have no bearing on this, since as long as the two timestamps are relative to the same starting date, the difference between them should be an absolute quantity.

Perhaps you might show a bit of the relevant code?

eojlin

that's right... that's why i'm also confused why i still get that "8 hours" as the number of hours elapsed. though, i only tested the script for a couple of minutes. also, minutes and seconds are working fine.

here's the code:

$etExmnStartTime = $etSessArray["ExmnStartTime"]; // from the previous page
$etCurrDur1 = time() - intval($etExmnStartTime); // same thing even without intval()
$etCurrDur2 = getdate($etCurrDur1);
echo($etCurrDur2["hours"] . ":" . $etCurrDur2["minutes"] . ":" . $etCurrDur2["seconds"]);

eojlin

Hi,

I'm really sorry to bother and confuse you. Well, i just got confused aand mixed up 'cause this project is almost due.

While reading the reply I posted, i realized that i don't need getdate. it's funny why i thought about converting seconds to some object, when all i need is to convert it mathematically by dividing it to 60 to get "minutes" and so on.

Anyway, thanks a lot, if it wasn't for your reply i won't realize my mistake this soon.

🙂

kparker

For starters, forget all the fancy formatting and just display the raw seconds. time() is just unix time(), so if you access to a C compiler on your local system you can write something like this:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

int main(void)
{
time_t t;
time( &t );
printf("%ld\n", (long) t ); // just in case time_t isn't long!
return 0;
}

This will print the current time in raw seconds. (It's currently about 994745303 here.) Now you have a number you can compare with your php-produced numbers for plausibility.