How to compare dates in PHP in Y-m-d format?

Question

I'm trying to cycle through some dates in this format: "May 10, 2016" and see if today is before or after that, for the purpose of showing/hiding div's associated with that date.

I've searched so far, and only found questions where the comparison is just with numerical dates, but what would be the correct code for this sort of comparison:

$cDate = "May 10, 2016"
$todayDate = NOW(); // in "May 25, 2016" format
if ($cDate < $todayDate) {
    ...more code...
}

http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.datetime.php http://carbon.nesbot.com/docs/ (and `NOW()` is MySQL, PHP uses `time()`). — ceejayoz, May 25 '16 at 13:56
That's because date strings don't exist; they are simply strings that we humans interpret as a date, but are nothing more than sequences of characters to a computer.... that's why you can't compare date strings, but only numeric dates — Mark Baker, May 25 '16 at 13:57
It isn't appropriate for you to be asking answerers of your question to up vote. — vascowhite, May 25 '16 at 14:24

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 25 '16 at 15:34

3

Solution is simple with PHP's DateTime() class.

<?php
    $date = new DateTime('May 30, 2016');
    $today = new DateTime();

    if($today > $date) {
        echo "Date was in past";
    } else if ($today == $date) {
        echo "It's now";
    } else {
        echo "Date is in future";
    }

edited May 25 '16 at 15:34

hypeJunction

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9

answered May 25 '16 at 14:05

Rehmat

4,681
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@NoReceipt4Panda Done it from my end ;) – Rehmat May 25 '16 at 14:46

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 25 '16 at 13:58

2

If you don't care about timezones:

$that = strtotime("May 10, 2016");
$now = time();
if ($that < $now) {
  // do your thing
}

answered May 25 '16 at 13:58

hypeJunction

351
1
9

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 25 '16 at 13:58

1

It's easy with strtotime()

$cDate = "May 10, 2016";
$todayDate = strtotime(date('Y-m-d')); // in "May 25, 2016" format
if (strtotime($cDate) < $todayDate) {
    echo 'hi';
}

answered May 25 '16 at 13:58

Mojtaba

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@NoReceipt4Panda, Done – Mojtaba May 25 '16 at 14:48

How to compare dates in PHP in Y-m-d format?

3 Answers3