simple date if statement ? syntax problem ?

ejwf

I have 3 dates I want to compare as part of an if / else statement

$today - which is the result of $today = date('Y-m-d');
$open - the result of a query
$end - the result of a query

I know all the dates are set correctly as I have echo'd them out as I would expect.

I want to say if $today is outside of the period between $open and $end, then produce an error message, else proceed with the code. I have got

IF ($today < '$open' OR > '$end')
{
echo ' blah blah blah error message ';
}
Else
{
// code goes here
}

I get the error message
Parse error: parse error, unexpected '>' in /xxxxxxxxx
for the line with the IF statement.

I have also tried with || in place of OR and I get the same error

Obviously my syntax is wrong but I don't know how/why.
Can anyone help
thanks.

harmor

if ($today < '$open' OR $today > '$end')
{
echo ' blah blah blah error message ';
}
else
{
// code goes here
}

you forgot "$today" after "OR"

ejwf

thank you - I have amended this and it gets rid of the error message.

However the code isn't performing as I would expect,
$today = 2005-11-15
$open = 2005-12-13
$end = 2005-12-19

today is clearly outside of the period between $open and $end, but the code only executes whatever I put in the IF clause.

For example if I put

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

IF ($today >= '$OpenEarly' OR $today <= '$EndDate')
// if today is within the period
{
// code goes here to run a series of queries to create a user entry form
}
ELSE
{
echo ' error message'
}

the page will run the code no problem
But it ran the code even though todays date is not within the period - which is a problem !
So I tried turning it around

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

IF ($today < '$OpenEarly' OR $today > '$EndDate')
// if today is outside of the period
{
echo ' error message'
}
ELSE
{
// code goes here to run a series of queries to create a user entry form
}

when this code is run I get the error message which is what I would expect, but to test it all I changed the dates in the database so that todays date fell inside the period and I still got the error message.

So whichever statement I put in the IF clause seems to run regardles of whether the date is inside or outside of the period.......

This is driving me nuts !
I am not very familiar with using dates in queries so I cannot see where I am going wrong.
Can anyone help - thanks

Vbabiy

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

IF ($today >= '$OpenEarly' && $today <= '$EndDate')
// if today is within the period
{
// code goes here to run a series of queries to create a user entry form
}
ELSE
{
echo ' error message'
}

Try that

ejwf

thanks

I think I have solved the problem by trial and error.......

this works (take out the '' around the variables)

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

IF  ($today < $Open OR $today > $End) 
// if today is outside the period 
{ 
echo ' error message' 
} 
ELSE 
{ 
// code goes here to run a series of queries to create a user entry form 
}