PHP - Countdown to date

From Global Programming Syntax

Sometimes on a website you may want to have displayed on a page the number of days untill an event. But it can also be hard work updating this number every day unless you write a PHP script to update it for you. Below is a simple script that allows you to display the number of hours, days or months untill a specified date. First place the following at the top of your PHP file.

<?
function countdown($ddday,$ddmonth,$ddyear,$ddtype)
    {
    $dddays=$ddday-date(j);
    $ddmonths=$ddmonth-date(n);
    $ddyears=$ddyear-date(Y);
    if ($ddmonths<12)
        {
        $ddmonths=$ddmonths*30.5;
        } else {
        $ddmonths=$ddmonths*(365/12);
        }
    $ddyears=$ddyears*365;
    $ddoverall=$dddays+$ddmonths+$ddyears;
    if ($ddtype=='houres' || $ddtype=='hours' || $ddtype=='hour' || $ddtype=='houre')
        {
        $ddoverall=$ddoverall*24;
        return $ddoverall;
        } else
    if ($ddtype=='day' || $ddtype=='days')
        {
        $ddoverall=round($ddoverall);
        return $ddoverall;
        } else
    if ($ddtype=='month' || $ddtype=='months')
        {
        $ddoverall=$ddoverall/(365/12);
        $ddoverall=round($ddoverall);
        return $ddoverall;
        }
    }

After you have placed the above code at the top of your php file, you then will need to call the function to display how many hours/days/months until the date of choice. So below is an example of using the function.

// Basic formatting of the function
// countdown(day,month,year,return_as);
//-------------------------------------
 
//each line below displays same date but for hours, days & months
echo "hours=".  countdown(31,12,2010,'hours')  ."<br>";
echo "days=".   countdown(31,12,2010,'days')   ."<br>";
echo "months=". countdown(31,12,2010,'months') ."<br>";