date has passed function

[ldoozer]

Hi all, I have dates in my db which are stored as strings like this 08/01/2007 and i am trying to write a script which either says the date i pass in is in the future or in the past... can anyone help?

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

If you can seperate the day, month, and year, convert the month to textual format (example, "august"), then yes, this is very possible, and quite easy.

 

$date = strtotime($day . $month . $year);

$now = strtotime("now");

if($now >= $date) {

  echo "that date has passed";

  } else {

  echo "That date has not yet passed";

  }

 

Should work fine, but remember, you need to have day, month, and year seperate and the month has to be in textual format.

[PC Nerd]

why not use timestamp and simply go:

 

$now = .....

$to_check = .....

 

if ($to_check > $now ){echo "FUTURE!!!";}

else {echo "ANCIENT HISTORY MAN!!!";}

 

 

 

thats what id do.  you could then store the timestames and do what ever formatting you wanted with it,

 

what your currently doing really restricts formatting

 

 

good luck

[ldoozer]

unfortunalty the way dates are currently stored and the way they are input through a javascript calender puts them in like this: 08/04/2007 and so I need to find a way of enterpreting that and quering it against another date.

[per1os]

<?php
$time = strtotime('08/04/2007');
  $newdate = date('Y-m-d', $time);
?>

 

http://us.php.net/strtotime

http://www.php.net/date

 

That should help you on your merry way.

[ldoozer]

Thanks that give me a good output but using that why wont this work :

$time = strtotime('09/04/2007');
$newdate = date('Y-m-d', $time);

$date = $newdate;
$now = strtotime("now");
if($now >= $date) {
  echo "that date has passed";
  } else {
  echo "That date has not yet passed";
  }

[per1os]

$time = strtotime('09/04/2007');
$date = date('Y-m-d', $time);

$now = date('Y-m-d', time());
if($now >= $date) {
  echo "that date has passed";
  } else {
  echo "That date has not yet passed";
  }

 

www.php.net/time

[ldoozer]

Thanks loads that's done the trick

[kenrbnsn]

You really should be comparing UNIX timestamps not ASCII strings here:

<?php
$date = strtotime('09/04/2007');

$now = time();
if($date < $now)
  echo "That date has not yet passed";
else
  echo "that date has passed";
?>

 

Ken

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Seriously, timestamps make everything easier.  A timestamp is simply the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch (january 1, 1970, at 0:0:0).  Use timestamps.