--- title: [RFC] Duration class | daily.dev description: Tim Düsterhus and Derick Rethans have proposed a new `Time\Duration` class for PHP 8.6, designed to represent stopwatch-style durations for timeout APIs. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ngpekgbvi twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: [RFC] Duration class | daily.dev og:description: Tim Düsterhus and Derick Rethans have proposed a new `Time\Duration` class for PHP 8.6, designed to represent stopwatch-style durations for timeout APIs. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ngpekgbvi og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/NGPEkgbVi.png og:image:alt: [RFC] Duration class og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # [RFC] Duration class **[externals.io](https://daily.dev/sources/externals)** · 119 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Tim Düsterhus and Derick Rethans have proposed a new `Time\Duration` class for PHP 8.6, designed to represent stopwatch-style durations for timeout APIs. The RFC is intentionally minimal, using a seconds+nanoseconds internal representation (similar to Rust's and Java's Duration). Key design decisions discussed include: the `Time` namespace choice (aligned with Rust's `std::time`, Java's `java.time`, Go's `time`), why floating-point methods were deferred (precision/rounding concerns), why ISO 8601 serialization is omitted for now, and why the JavaScript Temporal API's `temporal_rs` library was not adopted (API mismatch with PHP's type system and Zend Engine integration complexity). Community feedback raised questions about `add`/`sub` vs. a variadic `sum()` method, namespace naming, and missing `toIso8601String()`. The RFC is positioned as the first step toward a modernized PHP date/time API. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [\[RFC\] Duration class](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-5vvsuhxni) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Duration class](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-g1bpxesky) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Duration class](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-bxfbbzzoe) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Duration class](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ozefvdpbl) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Duration class](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-7nlgcruab) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#php](https://daily.dev/tags/php) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ngpekgbvi) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"[RFC] Duration class","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ngpekgbvi","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-duration-class-ngpekgbvi"},"datePublished":"2026-07-03T20:59:01.510Z","dateModified":"2026-07-03T20:59:29.153Z","description":"Tim Düsterhus and Derick Rethans have proposed a new `Time\\Duration` class for PHP 8.6, designed to represent stopwatch-style durations for timeout APIs. 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