countdown timer using php, can't make it work

Question

i am making a php countdown timer that display only minutes and seconds.

here is my code:

$time = "10:00";
$time_min = substr($time, 0,2);
echo $time_sec = substr($time, 3) . "<br>";
$current = date("i:s");
$target = date("i:s" , mktime(0,$time_min,0,0,0,0));
echo $current-$target . "<br>";
echo $target;

the output should be the remaining time from the time the user opens the page.

Answer 1

Not knowing the details of your jQuery I am taking a shot at this.

I prefer working in seconds, so to get the $timeRemaining (you must know the initial time to do this) at any given instant in the 10 minute window, I would do this:

$targetTime = time() + 600; //you have to save this either in database or as variable somewhere

Then on subsequent opening of relevant php file the following code could be used if targetTime is saved in database

$sqlTime = mysqli_fetch_assoc(mysqli_query($cxn, "SELECT targetTime FROM timeTable WHERE id = '$myID'"));
$currentTime = time();
$timeRemaining = (($sqlTime['targetTime'] - $currentTime) / 60) . ":" . (($sqlTime['targetTime'] - $currentTime) % 60);