您可以使用

getdate()

函数，该函数返回包含所提供日期/时间的所有元素的数组：

$diff = abs($endDate - $startDate);
$my_t=getdate($diff);
print("$my_t[year] years, $my_t[month] months and $my_t[mday] days");

如果开始和结束日期为字符串格式，则使用

$startDate = strtotime($startDateStr);
$endDate = strtotime($endDateStr);

在上述代码之前

我更喜欢使用date_create和date_diff对象。

代码：

$date1 = date_create("2007-03-24");
$date2 = date_create("2009-06-26");

$dateDifference = date_diff($date1, $date2)->format('%y years, %m months and %d days');

echo $dateDifference;

输出：

2 years, 3 months and 2 days

有关更多信息，请阅读PHP date_diff手册

根据手册date_diff是的别名日期时间：：diff（）

使用示例：

echo time_diff_string('2013-05-01 00:22:35', 'now');
echo time_diff_string('2013-05-01 00:22:35', 'now', true);

输出：

4 months ago
4 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, 15 seconds ago

功能：

function time_diff_string($from, $to, $full = false) {
    $from = new DateTime($from);
    $to = new DateTime($to);
    $diff = $to->diff($from);

    $diff->w = floor($diff->d / 7);
    $diff->d -= $diff->w * 7;

    $string = array(
        'y' => 'year',
        'm' => 'month',
        'w' => 'week',
        'd' => 'day',
        'h' => 'hour',
        'i' => 'minute',
        's' => 'second',
    );
    foreach ($string as $k => &$v) {
        if ($diff->$k) {
            $v = $diff->$k . ' ' . $v . ($diff->$k > 1 ? 's' : '');
        } else {
            unset($string[$k]);
        }
    }

    if (!$full) $string = array_slice($string, 0, 1);
    return $string ? implode(', ', $string) . ' ago' : 'just now';
}

查看小时、分钟和秒。。

$date1 = "2008-11-01 22:45:00"; 

$date2 = "2009-12-04 13:44:01"; 

$diff = abs(strtotime($date2) - strtotime($date1)); 

$years   = floor($diff / (365*60*60*24)); 
$months  = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24) / (30*60*60*24)); 
$days    = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24)/ (60*60*24));

$hours   = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24)/ (60*60)); 

$minuts  = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24 - $hours*60*60)/ 60); 

$seconds = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24 - $days*60*60*24 - $hours*60*60 - $minuts*60)); 

printf("%d years, %d months, %d days, %d hours, %d minuts\n, %d seconds\n", $years, $months, $days, $hours, $minuts, $seconds); 

“如果”日期存储在MySQL中，我发现在数据库级别进行差异计算更容易。。。然后根据“天”、“小时”、“分钟”、“秒”输出，分析并显示相应的结果。。。

mysql> select firstName, convert_tz(loginDate, '+00:00', '-04:00') as loginDate, TIMESTAMPDIFF(DAY, loginDate, now()) as 'Day', TIMESTAMPDIFF(HOUR, loginDate, now())+4 as 'Hour', TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTE, loginDate, now())+(60*4) as 'Min', TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND, loginDate, now())+(60*60*4) as 'Sec' from User_ where userId != '10158' AND userId != '10198' group by emailAddress order by loginDate desc;
 +-----------+---------------------+------+------+------+--------+
 | firstName | loginDate           | Day  | Hour | Min  | Sec    |
 +-----------+---------------------+------+------+------+--------+
 | Peter     | 2014-03-30 18:54:40 |    0 |    4 |  244 |  14644 |
 | Keith     | 2014-03-30 18:54:11 |    0 |    4 |  244 |  14673 |
 | Andres    | 2014-03-28 09:20:10 |    2 |   61 | 3698 | 221914 |
 | Nadeem    | 2014-03-26 09:33:43 |    4 |  109 | 6565 | 393901 |
 +-----------+---------------------+------+------+------+--------+
 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

对于遗留代码（PHP＜5.3）使用此选项。有关最新的解决方案，请参阅下面jurka的答案

您可以使用strtotime（）将两个日期转换为unix时间，然后计算它们之间的秒数。由此很容易计算出不同的时间段。

$date1 = "2007-03-24";
$date2 = "2009-06-26";

$diff = abs(strtotime($date2) - strtotime($date1));

$years = floor($diff / (365*60*60*24));
$months = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24) / (30*60*60*24));
$days = floor(($diff - $years * 365*60*60*24 - $months*30*60*60*24)/ (60*60*24));

printf("%d years, %d months, %d days\n", $years, $months, $days);

编辑：显然，尤尔卡在下面描述了这样做的首选方式。如果您没有PHP5.3或更高版本，通常只建议使用我的代码。

评论中的一些人指出，上面的代码只是一个近似值。我仍然认为，对于大多数目的来说，这是很好的，因为范围的使用更多地是为了提供时间流逝或剩余时间的感觉，而不是为了提供精度-如果你想这样做，只需输出日期。

尽管如此，我还是决定解决这些投诉。如果您确实需要一个精确的范围，但还没有访问PHP 5.3，请使用下面的代码（它也可以在PHP 4中使用）。这是PHP内部用于计算范围的代码的直接端口，但不考虑夏时制。这意味着它最多休息一个小时，但除此之外，它应该是正确的。

<?php

/**
 * Calculate differences between two dates with precise semantics. Based on PHPs DateTime::diff()
 * implementation by Derick Rethans. Ported to PHP by Emil H, 2011-05-02. No rights reserved.
 * 
 * See here for original code:
 * http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/trunk/ext/date/lib/tm2unixtime.c?revision=302890&view=markup
 * http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/trunk/ext/date/lib/interval.c?revision=298973&view=markup
 */

function _date_range_limit($start, $end, $adj, $a, $b, $result)
{
    if ($result[$a] < $start) {
        $result[$b] -= intval(($start - $result[$a] - 1) / $adj) + 1;
        $result[$a] += $adj * intval(($start - $result[$a] - 1) / $adj + 1);
    }

    if ($result[$a] >= $end) {
        $result[$b] += intval($result[$a] / $adj);
        $result[$a] -= $adj * intval($result[$a] / $adj);
    }

    return $result;
}

function _date_range_limit_days($base, $result)
{
    $days_in_month_leap = array(31, 31, 29, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31);
    $days_in_month = array(31, 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31);

    _date_range_limit(1, 13, 12, "m", "y", &$base);

    $year = $base["y"];
    $month = $base["m"];

    if (!$result["invert"]) {
        while ($result["d"] < 0) {
            $month--;
            if ($month < 1) {
                $month += 12;
                $year--;
            }

            $leapyear = $year % 400 == 0 || ($year % 100 != 0 && $year % 4 == 0);
            $days = $leapyear ? $days_in_month_leap[$month] : $days_in_month[$month];

            $result["d"] += $days;
            $result["m"]--;
        }
    } else {
        while ($result["d"] < 0) {
            $leapyear = $year % 400 == 0 || ($year % 100 != 0 && $year % 4 == 0);
            $days = $leapyear ? $days_in_month_leap[$month] : $days_in_month[$month];

            $result["d"] += $days;
            $result["m"]--;

            $month++;
            if ($month > 12) {
                $month -= 12;
                $year++;
            }
        }
    }

    return $result;
}

function _date_normalize($base, $result)
{
    $result = _date_range_limit(0, 60, 60, "s", "i", $result);
    $result = _date_range_limit(0, 60, 60, "i", "h", $result);
    $result = _date_range_limit(0, 24, 24, "h", "d", $result);
    $result = _date_range_limit(0, 12, 12, "m", "y", $result);

    $result = _date_range_limit_days(&$base, &$result);

    $result = _date_range_limit(0, 12, 12, "m", "y", $result);

    return $result;
}

/**
 * Accepts two unix timestamps.
 */
function _date_diff($one, $two)
{
    $invert = false;
    if ($one > $two) {
        list($one, $two) = array($two, $one);
        $invert = true;
    }

    $key = array("y", "m", "d", "h", "i", "s");
    $a = array_combine($key, array_map("intval", explode(" ", date("Y m d H i s", $one))));
    $b = array_combine($key, array_map("intval", explode(" ", date("Y m d H i s", $two))));

    $result = array();
    $result["y"] = $b["y"] - $a["y"];
    $result["m"] = $b["m"] - $a["m"];
    $result["d"] = $b["d"] - $a["d"];
    $result["h"] = $b["h"] - $a["h"];
    $result["i"] = $b["i"] - $a["i"];
    $result["s"] = $b["s"] - $a["s"];
    $result["invert"] = $invert ? 1 : 0;
    $result["days"] = intval(abs(($one - $two)/86400));

    if ($invert) {
        _date_normalize(&$a, &$result);
    } else {
        _date_normalize(&$b, &$result);
    }

    return $result;
}

$date = "1986-11-10 19:37:22";

print_r(_date_diff(strtotime($date), time()));
print_r(_date_diff(time(), strtotime($date)));