How to check if a date is expired (PHP)

Question

Hi my php script has two textboxes (one for month and one for year). When the user presses the submit button, it should verify the inputs to see if the dates are expired. Here is the code I made, but it doesnt seem to do anything.

$input_date = "$_POST['m']/$_POST['y']"; 

$todays_date = date("MM/YY");

if ($input_date < $todays_date)
{
   print '<p class = "error">Date has elapsed</p>';
}

Note: the date format is MM/YYYY (textbox 'm' contains MM and tetxbox 'y' contains YYYY)

Solution 1

You can use mktime() or strtotime()

$input_time = mktime(0,0,0,$_POST['m']+1,0,$_POST['y']); 

if ($input_time < time()){
   print '<p class = "error">Date has elapsed</p>';

}

Solution 2

You could probably use the strtotime function like this:

$input_date = "$_POST['m']/$_POST['y']"; 
$todays_date = date("m/Y");

if (strtotime($input_date) < strtotime($todays_date)){
print '<p class = "error">Date has elapsed</p>';

}

You can read here what kind of formats strtotime can handle: http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php

Solution 3

I don't believe that you can put those $_POST variables in quotes. For instance, the following code will crash:

<?php
$foo = array("foo" => "bar");
$input = "$foo['foo']";
print $input;
?>

Instead, try

$input_date = $_POST['m'] . "/" . $_POST['y'];

Also, you may want to consider reversing month and year. In the current scheme 01/13 comes before 12/12.

Comments

[Bojangles]

Do note that MM/YY will give something like AprApr/20122012 - it should just be M/Y.

[jeroen]

According to the manual Values greater than 12 reference the appropriate month in the following year(s).. So if you use $_POST['m'] + 1 you are generating a timestamp the first second of the next month and that is exactly what you want.

[M9A]

this works but is it possible to have another variable that converts it back to the "mm/yyyy" format?