[mysql] MySQL: how to get the difference between two timestamps in seconds

Is there a way I can make a query in MySQL that will give me the difference between two timestamps in seconds, or would I need to do that in PHP? And if so, how would I go about doing that?

This question is related to mysql timestamp

The answer is


How about "TIMESTAMPDIFF":

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(SECOND,'2009-05-18','2009-07-29') from `post_statistics`

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_timestampdiff


UNIX_TIMESTAMP(ts1) - UNIX_TIMESTAMP(ts2)

If you want an unsigned difference, add an ABS() around the expression.

Alternatively, you can use TIMEDIFF(ts1, ts2) and then convert the time result to seconds with TIME_TO_SEC().


Note that the TIMEDIFF() solution only works when the datetimes are less than 35 days apart! TIMEDIFF() returns a TIME datatype, and the max value for TIME is 838:59:59 hours (=34,96 days)