Are there any potential pitfalls when using the date() function to convert seconds into days, hours, minutes, and seconds in PHP?

When using the date() function to convert seconds into days, hours, minutes, and seconds in PHP, one potential pitfall is that the function expects a Unix timestamp as input, which represents the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. If you pass in a different value, such as the number of seconds elapsed since a specific date, the function will not produce the correct output. To solve this issue, you can create a new DateTime object with the starting date and time, add the number of seconds to it, and then format the resulting DateTime object to display the elapsed time in days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

$seconds = 123456; // Example number of seconds
$startDate = new DateTime('2022-01-01 00:00:00'); // Specify the starting date and time
$endDate = clone $startDate;
$endDate->add(new DateInterval('PT' . $seconds . 'S')); // Add the number of seconds to the starting date

$interval = $startDate->diff($endDate); // Calculate the difference between the two dates
echo $interval->format('%a days, %h hours, %i minutes, %s seconds'); // Output the elapsed time in days, hours, minutes, and seconds