SimpleXML - Date Manipulation

[bobbuilder]

I last logged in way back in 2006 - WOW!!!

Anyway I'm back as a newbie of SimpleXML and looking for help.

I'm using SimpleXML to pull in an XML feed and format it with PHP. When I pull in the StartDate from the XML file it shows up as 02 Dec 2011 07:30:00 PM (GMT+0) ... and that represents a start time for an event.

What I would like to do is reformat that date/time so that it shows as something liks this > 0:3:41:10 which would be [ 0 days 3 hours 41 minutes 10 seconds ] until the event.

Any pros out there want to take a stab at helping this old newbie out?

Much appreciated.

[Derokorian]

See if this is what you are looking for:

<?php

function countdown($end,$start = NULL) {
	if( is_null($start) ) $start = time();
	if( !is_numeric($end) ) $end = strtotime($end);
	if( $end <= $start ) return FALSE;
	$dif = $end - $start;
	$days = floor($dif / (60*60*24));
	$dif -= ($days*60*60*24);
	$hrs = floor($dif / (60*60));
	$dif -= ($hrs*60*60);
	$min = floor($dif / 60);
	$sec = $dif - ($min*60);
	return "$days:$hrs:$min:$sec";
}

$date = '05 Dec 2011 07:30:00 PM';
$left = countdown($date);
if( !$left ) echo 'Time has expired';
else	     echo $left .' remaining';

[bobbuilder]

That sort of worked.

date/ time is now displaying as 3:5:31:20 remaining but its displaying that exact same time remaining for every item...

$date = '05 Dec 2011 07:30:00 PM'; I am guessing that needs to work as

$date = '$StartDate'; to pull in the right start time for each item.

However when I try that it displays Time has expired.

I think maybe I'll just go post on elance and let someone else do all the work for me.

I really appreciate your assistance - have a great night!

[Derokorian]

note that $date = '$startDate'; sets date to the string $startDate not to the value of $startdate due to single quote strings not being parsed by php.

[bobbuilder]

So then how would I get the scripting you provided to work for every individual item thats returned?

[Derokorian]

There's really no way I can tell you how to get it to work with your code, when I've never seen your code.

[bobbuilder]

No worries ... I thank you for your assistance.

I found a script that would do the countdown for me.