PHP - Date Convert From Sql

So this is a simple code that finds out the difference between two dates and displays it in number of days.

$date1=date_create("2013-03-15");
$date2=date_create("2013-12-12");
$diff=date_diff($date1,$date2);
echo $diff->format("%R%a days");

// RESULT
+272 days

My first question. Is it possible to remove the + sign in the result above?

Second question. Is it possible to show "months" if it's greater than 30 days? And years if the days are greater than 365?

How would I do this?

Hi,

I have a job listing website which displays the closing date of applications using:

$expired_date

(This displays a date such as 31st December 2019)

I am trying to show a countdown/number of days left until the closing date.

I have put this together, but I can't get it to show the number of days.

                    <?php 
                    $expired_date = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_job_expires', true );
                    $hide_expiration = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_hide_expiration', true );
                    if(empty($hide_expiration )) {
                        if(!empty($expired_date)) { ?>
                                <span><?php echo date_i18n( get_option( 'date_format' ), strtotime( get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_job_expires', true ) ) ) ?></span>
                    
                    <?php
                                        $datetime1 = new DateTime($expired_date);
                                        $datetime2 = date('d');
                                        $interval = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);
                                        echo $interval->d;

                     ?>
                        <?php }
                    } 
                    ?>

Can anyone help me with what I have wrong?

Many thanks