PHP: How to check if a date is today, yesterday or tomorrow

Question

I would like to check, if a date is today, tomorrow, yesterday or else. But my code doesn't work.

Code:

$timestamp = "2014.09.02T13:34";
$date = date("d.m.Y H:i");
$match_date = date('d.m.Y H:i', strtotime($timestamp));

if($date == $match_date) { 

    //Today

} elseif(strtotime("-1 day", $date) == $match_date) {

    //Yesterday

} elseif(strtotime("+1 day", $date) == $match_date) {

    //Tomorrow

} else {

    //Sometime

}

The Code always goes in the else case.

Answer 1

First. You have mistake in using function strtotime see PHP documentation

int strtotime ( string $time [, int $now = time() ] )

You need modify your code to pass integer timestamp into this function.

Second. You use format dmY H:i that includes time part. If you wish to compare only dates, you must remove time part, eg `$date = date("dmY");``

Third. I am not sure if it works in the same way for you, but my PHP doesn't understand date format from $timestamp and returns 01.01.1970 02:00 into $match_date

$timestamp = "2014.09.02T13:34";
date('d.m.Y H:i', strtotime($timestamp)) === "01.01.1970 02:00";

You need to check if strtotime($timestamp) returns correct date string. If no, you need to specify format which is used in $timestamp variable. You can do this using one of functions date_parse_from_format or DateTime::createFromFormat

This is a work example:

$timestamp = "2014.09.02T13:34";

$today = new DateTime(); // This object represents current date/time
$today->setTime( 0, 0, 0 ); // reset time part, to prevent partial comparison

$match_date = DateTime::createFromFormat( "Y.m.d\\TH:i", $timestamp );
$match_date->setTime( 0, 0, 0 ); // reset time part, to prevent partial comparison

$diff = $today->diff( $match_date );
$diffDays = (integer)$diff->format( "%R%a" ); // Extract days count in interval

switch( $diffDays ) {
    case 0:
        echo "//Today";
        break;
    case -1:
        echo "//Yesterday";
        break;
    case +1:
        echo "//Tomorrow";
        break;
    default:
        echo "//Sometime";
}

Answer 2

<?php 
 $current = strtotime(date("Y-m-d"));
 $date    = strtotime("2014-09-05");

 $datediff = $date - $current;
 $difference = floor($datediff/(60*60*24));
 if($difference==0)
 {
    echo 'today';
 }
 else if($difference > 1)
 {
    echo 'Future Date';
 }
 else if($difference > 0)
 {
    echo 'tomorrow';
 }
 else if($difference < -1)
 {
    echo 'Long Back';
 }
 else
 {
    echo 'yesterday';
 }  
?>

Answer 3

I think this will help you:

<?php
$date = new DateTime();
$match_date = new DateTime($timestamp);
$interval = $date->diff($match_date);

if($interval->days == 0) {

    //Today

} elseif($interval->days == 1) {
    if($interval->invert == 0) {
        //Yesterday
    } else {
        //Tomorrow
    }
} else {
    //Sometime
}

Answer 4

There is no built-in functions to do that in Php (shame ^^). You want to compare a date string to today, you could use a simple substr to achieve it:

if (substr($timestamp, 0, 10) === date('Y.m.d')) { today }
elseif (substr($timestamp, 0, 10) === date('Y.m.d', strtotime('-1 day')) { yesterday }

No date conversion, simple.

Answer 5

function getRangeDateString($timestamp) {
    if ($timestamp) {
        $currentTime=strtotime('today');
        // Reset time to 00:00:00
        $timestamp=strtotime(date('Y-m-d 00:00:00',$timestamp));
        $days=round(($timestamp-$currentTime)/86400);
        switch($days) {
            case '0';
                return 'Today';
                break;
            case '-1';
                return 'Yesterday';
                break;
            case '-2';
                return 'Day before yesterday';
                break;
            case '1';
                return 'Tomorrow';
                break;
            case '2';
                return 'Day after tomorrow';
                break;
            default:
                if ($days > 0) {
                    return 'In '.$days.' days';
                } else {
                    return ($days*-1).' days ago';
                }
                break;
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

Pass the date into the function.

            <?php
                function getTheDay($date)
                {
                    $curr_date=strtotime(date("Y-m-d H:i:s"));
                    $the_date=strtotime($date);
                    $diff=floor(($curr_date-$the_date)/(60*60*24));
                    switch($diff)
                    {
                        case 0:
                            return "Today";
                            break;
                        case 1:
                            return "Yesterday";
                            break;
                        default:
                            return $diff." Days ago";
                    }
                }
            ?>

Answer 7

Here is a more polished version of the accepted answer. It accepts only timestamps and returns a relative date or a formatted date string for everything +/-2 days

<?php

/**
 * Relative time
 *
 * date Format http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php
 * strftime Format http://php.net/manual/en/function.strftime.php
 * latter can be used with setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE@euro', 'de_DE', 'deu_deu');
 *
 * @param  timestamp $target
 * @param  timestamp $base   start time, defaults to time()
 * @param  string $format use date('Y') or strftime('%Y') format string
 * @return string
 */
function relative_time($target, $base = NULL, $format = 'Y-m-d H:i:s')
{

    if(is_null($base)) {
        $base = time();
    }

    $baseDate = new DateTime();
    $targetDate = new DateTime();

    $baseDate->setTimestamp($base);
    $targetDate->setTimestamp($target);

    // don't modify original dates
    $baseDateTemp = clone $baseDate;
    $targetDateTemp = clone $targetDate;

    // normalize times -> reset to midnight that day
    $baseDateTemp = $baseDateTemp->modify('midnight');
    $targetDateTemp = $targetDateTemp->modify('midnight');

    $interval = (int) $baseDateTemp->diff($targetDateTemp)->format('%R%a');

    d($baseDate->format($format));

    switch($interval) {
        case 0:
            return (string) 'today';
        break;

        case -1:
            return (string) 'yesterday';
        break;

        case 1:
            return (string) 'tomorrow';
        break;

        default:
            if(strpos($format,'%') !== false )
            {
                return (string) strftime($format,  $targetDate->getTimestamp());
            }
            return (string) $targetDate->format($format);
        break;

    }
}

setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE@euro', 'de_DE', 'deu_deu');
echo relative_time($weather->time, null, '%A, %#d. %B'); // Montag, 6. August 
echo relative_time($weather->time, null, 'l, j. F'); // Monday, 6. August

Answer 8

This worked for me, where I wanted to display keyword "today" or "yesterday" only if date was today and previous day otherwise display date in dMY format

<?php
function findDayDiff($date){
   $param_date=date('d-m-Y',strtotime($date);
   $response  = $param_date;
   if($param_date==date('d-m-Y',strtotime("now"))){
       $response = 'Today';
   }else if($param_date==date('d-m-Y',strtotime("-1 days"))){
       $response = 'Yesterday'; 
   }
   return $response;
}
?>

Answer 9

function get_when($date) {

    $current = strtotime(date('Y-m-d H:i'));

    $date_diff = $date - $current;
    $difference = round($date_diff/(60*60*24));

    if($difference >= 0) {
            return 'Today';
    } else if($difference == -1) {
            return 'Yesterday';
    } else if($difference == -2 || $difference == -3  || $difference == -4 || $difference == -5) {
            return date('l', $date);
    } else {
            return ('on ' . date('jS/m/y', $date));
    }

}

get_when(date('Y-m-d H:i', strtotime($your_targeted_date)));

Answer 10

Simple one liners for today/yesterday/tomorrow:

$someDate = '2021-11-07'; // date in any format

$isToday = date('Ymd') == date('Ymd', strtotime($someDate));
$isYesterday = date('Ymd') == date('Ymd', strtotime($someDate) + 86400);
$isTomorrow = date('Ymd') == date('Ymd', strtotime($someDate) - 86400);