Countdown timer built on PHP and jQuery?

Question

After spending the last 45 minutes looking around for a solution, I can\'t seem to find an easy solution to creating a countdown timer using PHP and jQuery. Most already bui

Answer 1

OK, I know that an id is not a variable, but don't use this as an ID. It is makes people cringe.

To the rest, don't reload the value, set a value in JS in PHP and then count down.

// place this in the  above the code below
echo "var t = " . time() . ";";
echo "var ft = " . /* your final time here */ . ";";

Then:

// this is a helper function.
function lpad( input, len, padstr )
{
    if( !padstr ) padstr = " "; // this is the normal default for pad.
    var ret = String( input );
    var dlen = ret.length - len;
    if( dlen > 0 ) return ret;
    for( var i = 0; i < dlen; i++ ) ret = padstr + ret;
    return ret;
}

$(document).ready(function name() {
    $("#timer").load( function() {  // I changed the id
        $timer = $("timer"); // might as well cache it.
        // interval, not timeout. interval repeats
        var intval = setInterval(function(){
             t += 500; // decrease the difference in time
             if( t >= ft )
             {    
                 t = ft; // prevent negative time.
                 clearInterval( intval ) // cleanup when done.
             }
             var dt = new Date(ft - t); 
             $timer.innerHTML = dt.getHours() + ":" + 
                                // pad to make sure it is always 2 digits
                                lpad( dt.getMinutes(), 2, '0' ) + ":" + 
                                lpad( dt.getSeconds(), 2, '0' );
        }, 500) // increments of .5 seconds are more accurate
      }
    }
});