Comparing two Dates using strtotime() in PHP

Question

I have two variables containing strings of dates in the format

$four_days_have_passed = "07-14-2013";
$now = "07-10-2013";

I have checked the output in FirePHP and the dates are correct.

Then I try to compare them like this,

if (strtotime($now) < strtotime($four_days_have_passed))
{
  Do Stuff
}

Why does the code inside the IF statement never execute?

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 10 '13 at 10:08

7

If you want to use MM/DD/YYYY format you need / separator.

$four_days_have_passed = "07/14/2013";
$now = "07/10/2013";

From the manual:-

Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed.

edited Jul 10 '13 at 10:08

vascowhite

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answered Jul 09 '13 at 23:26

Daniel Kmak

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he doesn't need `/` he needs proper format. He can use `14-07-2013` too :) – Robert Jul 11 '13 at 13:04

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 09 '13 at 23:20

2

The format (when used like that) is DD-MM-YYYY. There is no 14th month.

answered Jul 09 '13 at 23:20

alex

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I have forced the format to `$now = date('m-d-Y', strtotime($getCurrentDate . "+0 day")); $four_days_have_passed = date('m-d-Y', strtotime($getRepDate . "+4 days"));` – David Folksman Jul 09 '13 at 23:21
@David Folksman: no you haven't. `strtotime` doesn't expect it to be in american format. – zerkms Jul 09 '13 at 23:21
Hence why I used the format m-d-y, i dont understand your answer? – David Folksman Jul 09 '13 at 23:22
@David Folksman: `strtotime` accepts the date to be in either `YYYY-MM-DD` (preferred) or `DD-MM-YYYY` format. That's it. More accepted formats here: http://php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.date.php – zerkms Jul 09 '13 at 23:23
Works here? http://writecodeonline.com/php/ `date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London'); $getCurrentDate = str_replace('/', '-',$_REQUEST['date']); $four_days_have_passed = date('m-d-Y', strtotime($getCurrentDate . "+4 days")); $now = date('m-d-Y', strtotime($rep1 . "+0 day")); echo $four_days_have_passed; echo "
".$now; if ($now < $four_days_have_passed) { echo "
booya"; }` – David Folksman Jul 09 '13 at 23:24
Well, it's up to you to not trust me and documentation. If you think that it "works there" - use it, good luck :-) – zerkms Jul 09 '13 at 23:25

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 13:03

I see you accepted answer but just to make sure you understand. There are 2 cases that dates are parsed.

American - month/day/year
European - day.month.year or day-month-year

You have error because you provided european format "07-14-2013" and there's no 14 month in year.

The proper format for you is one of these:

14-07-2013 - Europe
14.07.2013 - Europe
07/14/2013 - American

Morover, to compare datatime it's better to use object oriented solution and DataTime object. You can read more here.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 06 '17 at 11:44

0

The case of strtotime() function is the most easy way to handle using the format as yyyy-mm-dd. This is normal format in db date. If you use this format help easy for compare two dates.

edited Sep 06 '17 at 11:44

Alex M

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answered Sep 06 '17 at 09:40

Joyes Sebastian

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Welcome to SO. To make your answer really helpful you should add a small example. – maxhb Sep 06 '17 at 09:47

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 26 '19 at 07:51

0

In Europe, in particulary in France, we also use this format with the slash separator :

day/month/year

example for a french date : 26/08/2019

answered Aug 26 '19 at 07:51

Yohan M

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Comparing two Dates using strtotime() in PHP

5 Answers5