DateTime comparison

[mrgrammar]

I need to stop taking bids on a predetermined date at a specific time. I have the auction beginning and end defined in a table. At the specified end time, I need the form to disallow any more bids.

$submitdate = $_POST[submitdate];

$qry = "SELECT * FROM items WHERE itemid = ".$_POST[itemid];
//qry will only yield 1 record
$qryrecset = mysql_db_query($dbname, $qry);
$array = mysql_fetch_array ($qryrecset);
if ($submitdate < $array[datetimefield]){
insert the submitted form data into the database
}else{
echo "I'm sorry but the auction is over.";
}

How do I set up the datetime field and, do the query, and the 'if' comparison to check the date and time?

Mr. Grammar

[LordShryku]

just for functionality, I'd create a php timestamp when you create the auction and insert it into a bigint field in the DB. Then no sort of conversion would need to be done for comparison, and your comparison could be

if(time() > $array['datetimefield']) {
   // you've expired
}