diference between two timestamps

gaudery

hi, I need to check and see if the difference between two timestamps is less than a constant.
the timestamps are in formate time()
for example 00:00:00
not 0000-00-00 00:00:00

i think i could convert it to bin time then its easy iguess, but is there a way to do the math in sql and save the time waisted on the convert function.

thanks for your time. 🙂

TheIceman5

too many ways to list, did you ever think of trying to use the wonderful search function this board has??

I can tell you right now, it will be much quicker and you will learn lots more about this particular topic as this sort of question has been answered many many times. GO DO IT NOW!!!

DeltaRho2K

How is your timestamp actually formatted?

The time() function doesn't give you 00:00:00 formatting. It merely echos the number of seconds since the Unix epoch.
January 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT.

This is kind of important because if your stamp is actually formatted 00:00:00, then you will need to first convert that to the UNIX timestamp value using the mktime() function, more than likely.

Also, how is your constant formatted? That makes a difference too, because it is difficult to compare two different integer variables in two different formats,

Post more details.

gaudery

It in a mySql database nad is formated like that. 00:00:00

I spent some time reading the archieves before i posted, and i do love this site (though i just found it). But what i found was to convert it to unix timestamp, using mktime. I was wondering if there was another way in mysql. also mktime takes day,month, year, which I am not keeping track of in my database(in this particular table)

DeltaRho2K

The month, day and year wouldn't matter anyhow since you are only comparing the hours minutes and seconds...

Therefore, if your constant is in the format of 00:00:00 and your timestamp is in the same format, then you can use the date funtion like so:

$variable = date("U", mktime(00, 00, 00, 1, 1, 2000));
$constant = date("U", mktime(00, 00, 00, 1, 1, 2000));

You would take your timestamp, and use explode() to put it into an array. Then feed the 3 array values into the hour, minute and second portions of the mktime() function.

Do the same for your constant.

Just use the same month day and year for both (hardcoded into the mktime() function.

gaudery

doou... Thank you DeltaRho2K.

DeltaRho2K

No problem...