get the difference between two timestamps in seconds

get the difference between two timestamps in seconds

You could use the TIMEDIFF() and the TIME_TO_SEC() functions as follows:

SELECT TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF('2010-08-20 12:01:00', '2010-08-20 12:00:00')) diff;
+------+
| diff |
+------+
|   60 |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

You could also use the UNIX_TIMESTAMP() function.

SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP('2010-08-20 12:01:00') - 
       UNIX_TIMESTAMP('2010-08-20 12:00:00') diff;
+------+
| diff |
+------+
|   60 |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

If you are using the TIMESTAMP data type, I guess that the UNIX_TIMESTAMP() solution would be slightly faster, since TIMESTAMP values are already stored as an integer representing the number of seconds since the epoch

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