Comparing two Dates using strtotime() in PHP

php date strtotime

15,009

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

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

Solution 3

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.

15,009

Author by

David Folksman

Updated on June 18, 2022

Comments

David Folksman almost 2 years
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?
David Folksman almost 11 years

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"));
zerkms almost 11 years

@David Folksman: no you haven't. strtotime doesn't expect it to be in american format.
David Folksman almost 11 years

Hence why I used the format m-d-y, i dont understand your answer?
zerkms almost 11 years

@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: php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.date.php
David Folksman almost 11 years

Works here? 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 $four_days_have_passed; echo "<br>".$now; if ($now < $four_days_have_passed) { echo "<br> booya"; }
zerkms almost 11 years

Well, it's up to you to not trust me and documentation. If you think that it "works there" - use it, good luck :-)
Robert almost 11 years

he doesn't need / he needs proper format. He can use 14-07-2013 too :)
maxhb over 6 years

Welcome to SO. To make your answer really helpful you should add a small example.