manipulating timestamps for actual time

TheWebWench

I have a script that is parsing a log file with timestamps in this format:

[18:47:03]

They show the start of something, and on another line, the end:

[18:47:03] start
[18:48:01] end

I've written the preg match and have my data broken out into a nice little useful array, and can return my info properly in a legible manner:

hour: 18, min: 47 , sec: 03 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 48 , finish sec: 01 
hour: 18, min: 49 , sec: 00 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 49 , finish sec: 58 
hour: 18, min: 50 , sec: 41 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 51 , finish sec: 39 
hour: 18, min: 52 , sec: 08 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 53 , finish sec: 06 
hour: 18, min: 53 , sec: 42 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 54 , finish sec: 40 
hour: 18, min: 56 , sec: 21 / finish hour: 18 , finish min: 57 , finish sec: 18 
hour: 18, min: 59 , sec: 39 / finish hour: 19 , finish min: 00 , finish sec: 36 
hour: 19, min: 00 , sec: 40 / finish hour: 19 , finish min: 01 , finish sec: 38 
hour: 19, min: 01 , sec: 43 / finish hour: 19 , finish min: 02 , finish sec: 41 
hour: 13, min: 21 , sec: 55 / finish hour: 13 , finish min: 22 , finish sec: 56 
hour: 13, min: 23 , sec: 17 / finish hour: 13 , finish min: 24 , finish sec: 18 
hour: 13, min: 24 , sec: 25 / finish hour: 13 , finish min: 25 , finish sec: 27 
hour: 13, min: 25 , sec: 31 / finish hour: 13 , finish min: 26 , finish sec: 32

Now comes the math. I'm hoping to come up with the total time per each (and will tally them along the way, though that is the easy part). I'm having a problem with the logic of subtracting based on 60 instead of 100. If this was money, it would be easy to combine these into one nice number, subtract and then separate - but as it is time and based on 60 - I'm not sure how to script for the info I want (and when the clock goes from 23:##:## to 01:##:## I'm sure there will be problems there).

Can any point me in the proper direction to get the logic down so I can retrieve the info I desire?

tia!

devinemke

convert to UNIX timestamps and subtract:

$start = '18:47:03';
$end = '18:48:01';

$diff = strtotime($end) - strtotime($start);
echo 'this event lasted ' . $diff . ' seconds';

does your log only store times or does it also have dates? if it has full dates then the midnight rollover would not be an issue.

TheWebWench

Alas, no date (and wow.. that's just so much more simple than I was trying to work out).

working with it now to play w/adding up the times & see if I can figure how to handle a clock rollover.

devinemke

TheWebWench wrote:
working with it now to play w/adding up the times & see if I can figure how to handle a clock rollover.

ok then, if the end time hour is less than the start hour then i suppose you can assume that the event went over midnight so then you can simply calculate the difference and then add 12 hours. the only caveat there is that you have to account for daylight savings time (some days are 23 hours and some are 25 hours).