How to compare two dates in php
If we want to compare two dates date one and date two.
We have 3 ways to Compare two dates in PHP.
1) If both dates are in the same format
Method 1: If both dates are in the same format then use comparison operator.
Example:
<?php
// initialize dates
$date1 = “2018-05-05”;
$date2 = “2019-08-19”;
//comparison operator to
if ($date1 > $date2) {
echo “$date1 is latest than $date2”;
}
else{
echo “$date1 is older than $date2”;
}
?>
Output:
2018-05-05 is older than 2019-08-19
Method 2: If both dates are in different formats then we need to use strtotime() function to convert dates into the timestamp format
<?php
// initialize dates
$date1 = “18-05-05”;
$date2 = “2019-08-19”;
$dateTimestamp1 = strtotime($date1);
$dateTimestamp2 = strtotime($date2);
//converted dates
if ($dateTimestamp1 > $dateTimestamp2)
{
echo “$date1 is latest than $date2”;
}
else{
echo “$date1 is older than $date2”;
}
?>
Output:
18-05-05 is older than 2019-08-19
Method 3: Use DateTime class.
Example:
<?php
// initialize dates
$date1 = new DateTime(“18-05-05”);
$date2 = new DateTime(“2019-08-19”);
// Compare the dates
if ($date1 > $date2) {
echo $date1->format(“Y-m-d”) . ” is latest than ”
. $date2->format(“Y-m-d”);
}
else{
echo $date1->format(“Y-m-d”) . ” is older than ”
. $date2->format(“Y-m-d”);
}
?>
Output:
2018-05-05 is older than 2019-08-19
