PHP compare dates

In this article, we will work on the comparison between the dates in PHP.

Comparing the dates in PHP is not a tedious task when the dates are in a similar format, but when we compare the dates in a different format, it becomes difficult. Then we will use a DateTime class, date_diff method, and strtotime function for comparing the dates in php.

What do you mean by strtotime function in PHP?

In PHP, the strtotime() function converts a textual date-time description to a UNIX timestamp. This function accepts a string parameter that represents the description of date-time. We can return the textual date-time in date format using the date() function.

Syntax:

What do you mean by date_diff() function in PHP?

The date_diff() function used in php to return the difference between two DateTime objects.

Syntax:

Let's take various examples of how to compare the dates in PHP.

Example 1:

Explanation:

In the above example, we have created a comparison between the given dates in the same format. In this, we have used a simple comparison operator to compare the dates in php.

Output:

Following is the output of this example:

Example 2:

Explanation:

In the above example, we have compared the given dates when both the given dates are in different formats. In this, then use a strtotime() function to convert the given dates into the corresponding timestamp format and after that compare the timestamps values to get the desired result.

Output:

Following is the output of this example:

Example 3:

Explanation:

In the above example, we have created a comparison between the given dates. In this, we have used a DateTime class to compare between the two dates in php.

Output:

Following is the output of this example:

Example 4:

Explanation:

In the above example, we have created a comparison between the given dates. In this, we use a date_diff() method to create a comparison.

Output:

Following is the output of this example: