Compare given date with today

Question

I have following

$var = "2010-01-21 00:00:00.0"

I'd like to compare this date against today's date (i.e. I'd like to know if this $var is before today or equals today or not)

What function would I need to use?

Answer 1

Here you go:

function isToday($time) // midnight second
{
    return (strtotime($time) === strtotime('today'));
}

isToday('2010-01-22 00:00:00.0'); // true

---

Also, some more helper functions:

function isPast($time)
{
    return (strtotime($time) < time());
}

function isFuture($time)
{
    return (strtotime($time) > time());
}

Answer 2

Expanding on Josua's answer from w3schools:

//create objects for the dates to compare
$date1=date_create($someDate);
$date2=date_create(date("Y-m-d"));
$diff=date_diff($date1,$date2);
//now convert the $diff object to type integer
$intDiff = $diff->format("%R%a");
$intDiff = intval($intDiff);
//now compare the two dates
if ($intDiff > 0)  {echo '$date1 is in the past';}
else {echo 'date1 is today or in the future';}

I hope this helps. My first post on stackoverflow!

Answer 3

One caution based on my experience, if your purpose only involves date then be careful to include the timestamp. For example, say today is "2016-11-09". Comparison involving timestamp will nullify the logic here. Example,

//  input
$var = "2016-11-09 00:00:00.0";

//  check if date is today or in the future
if ( time() <= strtotime($var) ) 
{
    //  This seems right, but if it's ONLY date you are after
    //  then the code might treat $var as past depending on
    //  the time.
}

The code above seems right, but if it's ONLY the date you want to compare, then, the above code is not the right logic. Why? Because, time() and strtotime() will provide include timestamp. That is, even though both dates fall on the same day, but difference in time will matter. Consider the example below:

//  plain date string
$input = "2016-11-09";

Because the input is plain date string, using strtotime() on $input will assume that it's the midnight of 2016-11-09. So, running time() anytime after midnight will always treat $input as past, even though they are on the same day.

To fix this, you can simply code, like this:

if (date("Y-m-d") <= $input)
{
    echo "Input date is equal to or greater than today.";
}

Answer 4

To complete BoBby Jack, the use of DateTime OBject, if you have php 5.2.2+ :

if(new DateTime() > new DateTime($var)){
    // $var is before today so use it

}

Answer 5

You can use the DateTime class:

$past   = new DateTime("2010-01-01 00:00:00");
$now    = new DateTime();
$future = new DateTime("2020-01-01 00:00:00");

Comparison operators work*:

var_dump($past   < $now);         // bool(true)
var_dump($future < $now);         // bool(false)

var_dump($now == $past);          // bool(false)
var_dump($now == new DateTime()); // bool(true)
var_dump($now == $future);        // bool(false)

var_dump($past   > $now);         // bool(false)
var_dump($future > $now);         // bool(true)

It is also possible to grab the timestamp values from DateTime objects and compare them:

var_dump($past  ->getTimestamp());                        // int(1262286000)
var_dump($now   ->getTimestamp());                        // int(1431686228)
var_dump($future->getTimestamp());                        // int(1577818800)
var_dump($past  ->getTimestamp() < $now->getTimestamp()); // bool(true)
var_dump($future->getTimestamp() > $now->getTimestamp()); // bool(true)

^{* Note that === returns false when comparing two different DateTime objects even when they represent the same date.}

Answer 6

$toBeComparedDate = '2014-08-12';
$today = (new DateTime())->format('Y-m-d'); //use format whatever you are using
$expiry = (new DateTime($toBeComparedDate))->format('Y-m-d');

var_dump(strtotime($today) > strtotime($expiry)); //false or true