Forward: I've scanned through the existing questions/answers on this matter. This is not a duplicitous question; I cannot find a working solution from the accepted answers. The main questions/answers I've reviewed can be found here: How to calculate the difference between two dates using PHP? What I need: A calucalation of the difference between two dates expressed as years, months and days that works with PHP version: 5.2. <?php $current_date = date('d-M-Y'); $future_date = '2012-11-01'; ?> What I've tried: Most answers I find online don't seem to exact in that they don't factor in leap years. This highly rated answer won't work because DateTime-diff() is php 5.3+. This accepted answer results in (i.e. the second block of code aimed at PHP 5.2) results in the following being parsed: Array ( [y] = 25 [m] = 11 [d] = 7 [h] = 3 [i] = 15 [s] = 19 [invert] = 0 [days] = 9473 ) Array ( [y] = 25 [m] = 11 [d] = 7 [h] = 3 [i] = 15 [s] = 19 [invert] = 1 [days] = 9473 ) I can't tell if I've incorrectly applied the code or it's simply a case of me not knowing how to manipulate the array.