How to Add \'x\' Number of Hours to a Date in PHP?

Add an 'x' Number of Hours to a Date

In PHP, obtaining the current date and time is straightforward using the date() function. However, situations may arise where you need to modify this timestamp by adding a specific number of hours.

Let's delve into a specific scenario. Suppose you have a variable $now containing the current date and time in the format "Y-m-d H:m:s," where $hours is a variable representing a number of hours between 24 and 800. The task is to create a new variable $new_time that equals $now plus $hours.

To achieve this, you can utilize the strtotime() function. This function takes a date or time string and returns the corresponding Unix timestamp, which is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC.

By combining date() and strtotime(), you can construct the desired timestamp as follows:

<code class="php">$new_time = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime("+$hours hours", strtotime($now)));</code>

This code adds the value of $hours in hours to the current timestamp stored in $now. The result is then formatted using date() to match the specified date and time format.

Remember, if you need to include variables within the string passed to strtotime(), you must use double quotes instead of single quotes and enclose the variable names in curly braces.

For example, if $now is a variable containing the current timestamp, you would write:

<code class="php">$new_time = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime("+{$hours} hours"));</code>

However, it is recommended to use a more robust method for variable substitution, such as:

<code class="php">$new_time = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime(sprintf("+%d hours", $hours)));</code>

This method ensures that variable interpolation occurs during string concatenation, preventing potential code injection vulnerabilities.

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