Date Question

[gaza165]

This is probably a really easy question

 

say i have timestamps like this

 

Date: 1285372800

Date: 1285977600

Date: 1286582400

 

How can i find out and assign to a variable which of those is on or closest to todays date??

[gaza165]

Maybe if i post the code im doing you can better understand.

 

 

<?php
$feed = file_get_contents("events.xml");
$xml = new SimpleXmlElement($feed);
$time = time();
foreach ($xml->channel->item as $entry){
  
  $dc = $entry->children("http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/");
  $geo = $entry->children("http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#");
  
  echo "Title: ".$entry->title."</br>";

  //Dates that event is on.
  foreach($dc as $date) {

echo "Date: ".strtotime($date)."<br/>";

  }
  
  //Geo Location - Latitude and Londitude
echo "Lat: ".$geo[0]."<br/>";
echo "Long: ".$geo[1]."<br/>";
  
  
  
  echo "------------------------------------------------------------<br/>";
  
  
  
}

?>

[PFMaBiSmAd]

To find the closest to a value, you take the absolute value of the difference between the current value and the values in question. If you order the results of that in ascending order, the smallest value will be the same or closest to the current value.

 

Untested, but should work -

 

SELECT *, ABS(UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - your_date_column) as diff FROM your_table ORDER BY diff LIMIT 1

 

Edit: If your columns are actually a DATE or DATETIME, instead of the unix timestamp you showed in your first post, you would alter the above query to use the TIMEDIFF() function and either NOW() or CURDATE() inside of the ABS() function.

[gaza165]

Sorry i should have explained better...I am not bringing the dates back from a database but bringing them back from an xml file

[PFMaBiSmAd]

The same method can be performed using php code.

[gaza165]

What im trying to do is this... I have an XML File and i want to sort the events out by date

 

So like

 

26th Septemeer

 

List of all the events that have this date in their <dc:date> field.

 

28th September

 

List of all the events that have this date in their <dc:date> field.

 

 

XML FILE

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version='2.0'   xmlns:dc='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/' xmlns:xCal="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xcal" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" >
        
<channel>

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[15 Feb 2010 - 10 Oct 2010: Funk, Soul, Disco, Hiphop]]></title>
        <geo:lat>51.74713</geo:lat><geo:long>-1.23755</geo:long>
        <dc:date>2010-09-25T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
        <dc:date>2010-10-02T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
        <dc:date>2010-10-09T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>

    </item>
    
        <item>
            <title><![CDATA[26 Feb 2010 - 26 Oct 2010: Get Down]]></title>
            <geo:lat>51.74707</geo:lat><geo:long>-1.2351</geo:long>
            <dc:date>2010-09-24T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
            <dc:date>2010-10-01T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
            <dc:date>2010-10-08T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
            <dc:date>2010-10-15T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
            <dc:date>2010-10-22T01:00:00+01:00</dc:date>
        </item>



</channel>
</rss>

[salathe]

How does your last post relate to the original question?

[gaza165]

Well it doesnt really but I was trying to figure out a way to get the sort of thing im looking for.