How to get time difference between two strtotime datetime/s in hh:mm:ss format in PHP

i want to calculate the time difference between two strtotime datetime/s in hh:mm:ss format.

It is wordpress project. (PHP)

$target_time = strtotime($quiz_date . " 08:30 PM"); // Quiz Start time
$submitted_time = strtotime('now'); // submitted time
$time = gmdate('H:i:s', ($submitted_time - $target_time)); // difference in hh:mm:ss

I also set the desired default timezone.

These are the datetimes when form is processing.

2023-08-29 20:30:00

2023-08-31 19:00:00

and it is inserting this as time 22:30:00

later i will insert the difference in ‘hh:mm:ss’ format to MySQL.

$query = "INSERT INTO Results (user_id, Time) VALUES (" . $user_id . " , " . $time . ");" ; 

>Solution :

The best way for me to solve this problem would be :

$quiz_date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($quiz_date)) . " 08:30 PM";

$target_time = strtotime($quiz_date); 
$submitted_time = time(); 
$time_difference = $submitted_time - $target_time;

$hours = floor($time_difference / 3600);
$minutes = floor(($time_difference % 3600) / 60);
$seconds = $time_difference % 60;

$time_diff_formatted = sprintf('%02d:%02d:%02d', $hours, $minutes, $seconds);

The idea is pretty clear I think, I just converted the $time_difference to hours, minutes and seconds! And this way you have the variable you need for the MYSQL Query!

Good luck!