Deadline for a form

archna

Could someone guide me in handling a deadline for the form:

The form is about registering for an exam. there should be atleast a 7days(5 business days) gap between the day they register and the day for exam. If it is less than 7 days the form should automatically reject the candidate from submitting the form from registration. Could anyone guide me how I can proceed with the above task.....I am new to programming and as well as to php..Thanks in advance

twn0001

Use the PHP date() function.

<?php

// Insert the Time, Month, Day, Year, of Exam in the line below. This grabs the time of the Exam in milliseconds.
$ExamDate = mktime("hour","minute","second","month","day","year");

// This Grabs Today's Time, in milliseconds.
$Today = time();

// Get the difference
$Difference = $ExamDate - $Today;

// Convert MS to Whole Days
$Difference = floor($Difference / 1000 / 60 / 60 / 24);

// If greater than 7 days
if($Difference > 7){
echo("FORM HTML");
}
else{
echo("HTML IF THEY'RE TOO LATE TO SIGN UP");
}

Of course, you can condense it all to one if / else statement to save space:

<?php

if(floor( ( mktime("hour","minute","second","month","day","year") - time() ) /1000/60/60/24) > 7){
ECHO FORM
}
else{
ECHO REJECT NOTICE
}

archna

Thanks for your code but I am getting zero as the difference

Suppose if the exam day is on february 2008,29 at 20:30:00 and they register today I get the $Difference = floor($Difference / 1000 / 60 / 60 / 24);

as zero

I dont know whats going wrong

twn0001

Sorry, it's seconds, not milliseconds, so remove the division by 1000 in each of those examples.

Also, if you want it to be, "at 4:00 today, there's still 1 full day left until tomorrow", you should ceil() the result instead of floor() it.

If you want to find the number of business days in between now and a future date, you're going to start having to think through more complex logic.

I would recommend that you use the PHP date(); function.

The date function is: date("parameters", [mktime(hour,min,sec,month,day,year)]). If you leave out the mktime(), date() pulls the current date.

The parameter returns different things. date("Y") tells you the year. date("m") gives the month. You can combine them in different ways--date("m/d/Y") would give the month / day / year.

So, the parameter for "day of the week" is "w", which will return the day of the week, 0-6 = Sunday-Saturday. So, for today, Friday 7/27,

date("w") ==> "5".

If you want to check another date, use mktime(). So for 3:20 PM tomorrow, Saturday 7/28:

echo(date("w", mktime(15,20,0,7,28,2007)) ==> "6"

So, using this information, you'd want to set up a while loop that cycles through all the days between today and your end day, and checks to see if they're a week day or not, and then adds them all up.

<?php

// SET UP TWO COUNTERS
$days = 0;
$weekEndDays = 0;

// OUR END DATE
$endMonth = "07";
$endDay = "29";
$endYear = "2007";

// We're going to start counting days
while(date("Ymd") != date("Ymd", mktime(0,0,0,$endMonth,($endDay-$days),$endYear))){

// IF it's a weekend, add 1 to the weekend counter.
if(date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 0 || date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 6){
	$weekEndDays++;
}
//Add one to the day counter.
$days++;

}

//Find the total week days.
$totalWeekDays = $days-$weekEndDays;

?>

archna

thanks for your reply again. Its working...I was confused with counting the no.of bussiness days...but I understood the concept..Is that something like this

Guess I have two dates
$examdate
$registrationdate

I have to find out the no.of days between the two dates and should substract the no.of weekends.

If the days are >5, the form is ready for registration else I can ignore it...

Is this the way it goes....

twn0001

I'll try to explain it step by step for you.

First, you want to set up two variables that will act as counters. One for the total number of days between two dates, and one for the total number of week-end days between two dates.

$days = 0;
$weekEndDays = 0;

Next, we're going to set up some dummy variables that hold the "End Date".

$endMonth = "07";
$endDay = "29";
$endYear = "2007";

Now we're going to set up a while statement. A while statement repeats as long as the statement inside of it is true. Here's what the WHILE statement below says: take today's date in YMD format (20070727), and using the MKTIME() function, find the date in YMD format for the END DATE variables we defined above, but ALSO subtract the number of days in our DAY counter ($endDay-$days). The WHILE statement will keep executing until TODAY's DATE == END DATE-DATE COUNTER.

while(date("Ymd") != date("Ymd", mktime(0,0,0,$endMonth,($endDay-$days),$endYear))){

So, we need to add 1 to the day counter each time to WHILE loop is executed. This serves two functions: it advances the WHILE loop, bringing the END DATE 1 day closer to TODAY, and it also counts the number of times the WHILE loop has executed, which will tell us how many total days are between the two.

$days++;

Finally, we want to check to see if the current day the WHILE loop is examining is a week end. The date("w") function tells us the current week day, 0=Sunday, and 6=Saturday, so, we'll check the current day, by adding the value of the DAY counter to Today's date (date("d")+$days). If the current day's "w" value is a 0 (Sunday) or 6 (Saturday), we'll add one to the $weekEndDays counter. This will keep track of how many weekend days the WHILE loop has encountered.

if(date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 0 || date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 6){
$weekEndDays++;
}

Close the While loop.
}

//Find the total week days.
$totalWeekDays = $days-$weekEndDays;

Now, if you want to use the number of business days, just set up an If / Else statement:

if($totalWeekDays >= 5){
ECHO FORM
}
else{
ECHO REJECT
}

archna

Thanks for that....I was able to calculate the no.of working days between two dates...

Now I have problem in accessing arrays...

I take all my form values into an array called $access..like $access[examDay],$access[examYear],$access[examMonth]...

And post all the form variables into new array say

$registrationArray = $_POST['access'];

Now I need to loop throgh $registrationArray and find when it loops throgh examDay,examMonth and print their values to new variable say endDay,endMonth,endYear..

Tons of thanks...for your help

twn0001

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do.

How are you trying to load the values into $access?

What other content does $access hold other than ['examDay'], etc.?

Because if those are the only three variables inside of the $access array, you'd be best off to just reference them directly (e.g., $endDay = $access['examDay']).

It would be helpful if you'd post your code (both for the submission form and the PHP receiving script)

archna

I named all my form varaibles as

access[fname],access[lname],access[studentno].........access[examDay],access[examMonth],access[examYear].........

Once the form is submitted I post all the form values into an array by

$registrationArray = $_POST['access'];

so, now I need to get the values of examDay,examMonth and examYear to be printed into new varibles say endDay,endMonth,endYear....so that I can work on counting no.of working days...

I am using oops concept in processing the form at the back end..like once the form is posted I initialize the class and do several other functions like sending email, inserting into data base...

Thats the reason why i again post all the form variables into another variable...

Hope I made it clear..

twn0001

It seems like making extra variables would be an unnecessary step. Couldn't you just replace "$endDay" with $registrationArray['examDay'] in the code I gave you?

If not, you could always simply declare in your PHP code:

<?php

$endMonth = $registrationArray['examMonth'];
$endDay = $registrationArray['examDay'];
etc.

?>

That seems to be the best way. But if you really for some odd reason simply MUST loop through the array and declare it as individual variables (and I can't imagine why you would--you ought to know which variables are coming in), you could use eval(), but that's always a horrible idea.

Your code would look like this:

<?php

$registrationArray = $_POST['access'];

foreach($registrationArray as $key => $value){
$varname = "\$" . $key;
eval($varname . "=\"" . $value . "\";\n");
}

?>

That foreach loop would essentially declare

$whateverYourKeyIndexIs = $registrationArray['whateverYourKeyIndexIs'];

for each key index.

But once again, using eval() is horribly insecure (allows people to insert malicious code into your web app, and everything) and is generally a really bad idea. Your absolute best bet would to just use the raw $registrationArray['value']; in your code instead of making copies of it, but if you must make copies of it, you really should just directly declare them ($examDay = $registrationArray['examDay']) instead of trying to do it using a foreach() loop.

archna

I get an error..even if the no.of working days is < 5 it allows the registration and I guess there is a bug in the code..If I select any previous days like suppose todays date is august 2,2007 and If i select the exam day as January 1,2007..It accepts the registration...I am posting my code here...

///***********First if statement********************///
if($_POST['access']){

$processRegistration = true;
$registration = new Access_examforms($sql);
$registrationArray = $_POST['access'];
$endMonth = $registrationArray['examMonth'];
            $endday = $registrationArray['examDay'];
           $endYear = $registrationArray['examYear'];
$days = 0;
$weekEndDays = 0;

 // We're going to start counting days
while(date("Ymd") != date("Ymd", mktime(0,0,0,$endMonth,($endDay-$days),$endYear))){

// IF it's a weekend, add 1 to the weekend counter.

if(date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 0 || date("w", mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),(date("d")+$days),date("Y"))) == 6){
$weekEndDays++;
}

//Add one to the day counter.
$days++;

}

//Find the total week days.
$totalWeekDays = $days-$weekEndDays;
print_r($totalWeekDays);
$registration->loadDataFromArray($registrationArray);

}

///***********End of First if statement********************///

%%%*********2 if statement**********************%%%%

if($processRegistration and !count($errors)){

if($totalWeekDays > 5) {

$registration = new Access_examforms($sql);
$registration->loadDataFromArray($registrationArray);
if($registration->website == 'http://') unset($registration->website);
$registrationResult = $registration->insert();

if($registrationResult) {
 $registration->sendEmail();
 $registration->sendEmail_students();
 }


}

}else{
$processRegistration = false;
}

%%%*********end of 2 if statement**********************%%%%

Where Access_examforms is a class with a list of variables

archna

sorry I messed up with the code..Now form is working fine...But I have a small issue..I have to suspend the form from registering for christmas holidays say from Dec 21 to Jan 3..and again the from should be active after jan 3...How do I loop through dates ?