simple date comparison not working

jakeone

Hello,

Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong with the following code?

<?php

$downloadDeadline = "01062003";
echo $downloadDeadline."--";

$today = date("dmY");
echo $today."--";
if ($downloadDeadline > $today){
echo "can download";
}else{
echo "can't download";
}

I get the following output:

01062003--17042003--can't download

I'm expecting to see the dates and "can download" because the $downloadDeadline is greater than $today. What have I done wrong?

Any help is really appreciated.

planetsim

<?php

$downloadDeadline = "01062003";
echo $downloadDeadline."--";
$today = date("dmY");
echo $today."--";
if ($downloadDeadline > $today){
echo "can download";
}else{
echo "can't download";
}

Make it

<?php

$downloadDeadline = "01062003";
echo $downloadDeadline."--";
$today = time();
echo $today."--";
if ($downloadDeadline > $today){
echo "can download";
}else{
echo "can't download";
}

You cant validate a timestamp with date Y-m-d. Its not possible so well have to use time() to validate it. Hope that works for you.

jakeone

planetsim,

Thanks for the reply but it doesn't seem to want to play ball!

I tried your suggested amendment and the output was:

01062003--1050542754--can't download

I'll carry on to see if I can crack it...

planetsim

<?php

$downloadDeadline = "01062003";
echo $downloadDeadline."--";
$today = time();
echo $today."--";
if ($downloadDeadline < $today){
echo "can download";
}else{
echo "can't download";
}

Try that it should now work.. I misunderstood your problem

jakeone

Hi planetsim,

Thanks for your feedback. No luck i'm afraid.

This is what I'm trying to do. Say someone has 7 days to download something from a site e.g. they have to download it by 14/02/2003 (d/m/Y). I was trying to do a comparision between that deadline date and the date they visit the site, say (13/02/2003). The idea being that, if the deadline date was "greater than" the visit date, they still had time to download the file.

Thanks again, I will plug on!

Jake

xblue

for comparisons, either unix timestamp or a format like YYYYMMDD would work, but both must be in the same format. DDMMYYYY won't allow a comparison the way you want, since 30032003 (march 30) is greater than 01042003 (april 1).

in case you store the deadline date in mysql you can even let mysql do the work for you without converting anything back and forth.
🙂