How to compare two dates correctly?

Question

I have a web application which get a date ( dd.mm.YYYY ) from a MySQL database.

$date = ($_row["date"]);
$date = date('d.m.Y', strtotime($date));
$date = date('d.m.Y', strtotime("-5 day", strtotime($date)));

I format the date like this.

Now i want to compare the date from the DB with the date today.

$today = date('d.m.Y');

I want to show something when in 5 days from today is $date . My question is now how can I check this? I know there are many mistakes in the codes but I don't know how to do this correctly.

Answer 1

you can use the datetime object with function diff(). min. PHP 5.3.0

it is very comfortable:

<?php

  // your date from your Database
  $date = new DateTime('26.01.2015');
  // today
  $today = new DateTime;

  // calculate difference
  $diff = $today->diff($date);

  // if difference = 5 days
  if($diff->format('%a') == 5) {
    echo '5 days away';
  }else{
    echo $diff->format('%a'). ' days away.';
  }

?>

if you have a php version LESS 5.3.0 you can use the function of stepozer in the other answer:

<?php
  $_row["date"] = '27.01.2015';

  // your date from your Database
  $date = new DateTime( $_row["date"]);
  // today
  $today = new DateTime;

  // if difference = 5 days
  if(dateDifferenceInDays($date->format('d.m.Y'), $today->format('d.m.Y')) == 5){
    echo '5 days';
  }

  // function from stepozer
  function dateDifferenceInDays($date1, $date2)
  {
    $str = strtotime($date1) - strtotime($date2);
    return floor($str / 3600 / 24);
  }

?>

Answer 2

You can use strtotime like this:

public static function dateDifferenceInDays($date1, $date2)
{
    $str = strtotime($date1) - strtotime($date2);
    return floor($str / 3600 / 24);
}