subtracting time from a TIMESTAMP

[MWpro]

How might one do the follow in PHP:

Get the current time in TIMESTAMP form.

Subtract "x" amount of minutes from that timestamp. This also needs to be in TIMESTAMP form when all is said and done.

Thanks!

[blang]

Are you referring to a UNIX TIMESTAMP, e.g. the number of seconds from the "epoch" (Jan 1, 1970 00:00:00UTC)?
It's just in seconds, so figure out how many seconds X represents and subtract it from the current UNIX TIMESTAMP value.

[edited by: blang at 5:25 am (utc) on Mar. 31, 2009]

[coopster]

If it is in TIMESTAMP form, can we assume it is coming from a database? If so, I would use the database to do the subtraction.

SELECT '2009-03-31 10:30:00' - INTERVAL 1440 MINUTE; 
// 2009-03-30 10:30:00

[MWpro]

Thank you for your responses.

It will not originally come from the database, it needs to come from the current time; however, after the subtraction it will end up being put into a database.

[coopster]

So if it is coming from the current time then you know it is not user-supplied, it's just right off your system -- use the example above to populate the field in your database.

"INSERT INTO table (myTimeColumn) VALUE(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL $minutes MINUTE)"

[MWpro]

Thank you!