29th November 2010 - 4 minutes read time
To convert a time value into a decimal value representing the number of minutes can be useful for certain calculations. The following function takes a time as a string of hh:mm:ss and returns a decimal value in minutes.
/**
* Convert time into decimal time.
*
* @param string $time The time to convert
*
* @return integer The time as a decimal value.
*/
function time_to_decimal($time) {
$timeArr = explode(':', $time);
$decTime = ($timeArr[0]*60) + ($timeArr[1]) + ($timeArr[2]/60);
return $decTime;
}
If we take the time of 11:11:11 this gets split into 3 parts by the explode() function into hours, minutes and seconds, which then gets treated in the following way:
Minutes = (Hours x 60) + (Minutes) + (Seconds / 60)
Minutes = (11 x 60) + (11) + (11 / 60)
Minutes = (660) + (11) + (0.18333333)
Minutes = 671.18333333
The function can be used as follows:
