How can i substract or compare dates?

[niquil]

Hello, I want to check if todays date is larger then a given date.

This is the script i have so far:

<?php

$givenDate ="12-11-2003";

$today = date("d-m-Y");	

if ($today > $givendate)
{
  echo "<b>Wrong!</b> you cannot specify a date in the past, your a naughty boy/girl!";
}
else
{
  echo "you specified<br>"; 
  echo $givenDate;
  echo "<br>as your date of death.<br>"; 
}
?>

This seems to work but....

if I set

 $givenDate ="01-11-2004";

it will still tell me I am a naughty girl. which is wrong because obviously 2004 is not in the past.

So who can give me an example or tell me how i can see if a given date lies in the future?

I hope you can help me,
greetz from NiQuil

[YappyDog]

Your if statement is comparing two strings (that happen to contain date info), not two date columns.

In order for the comparison to work, you need to have your strings in a yyyy-mm-dd format.