How to check if a date is in a given range?

Question

If you have a $start_date and $end_date, how can you check if a date given by the user falls within that range?

e.g.

$start_date = '2009-06-17';

$end_date = '2009-09-05';

$date_from_user = '2009-08-28';

At the moment the dates are strings, would it help to convert them to timestamp integers?

Answer 1

Convert them into dates or timestamp integers and then just check of $date_from_user is <= $end_date and >= $start_date

Answer 2

Convert both dates to timestamps then do

pseudocode:

if date_from_user > start_date && date_from_user < end_date
    return true

Answer 3

$startDatedt = strtotime($start_date)
$endDatedt = strtotime($end_date)
$usrDatedt = strtotime($date_from_user)

if( $usrDatedt >= $startDatedt && $usrDatedt <= $endDatedt)
{
   //..falls within range
}

Answer 4

Converting them to timestamps is the way to go alright, using strtotime, e.g.

$start_date = '2009-06-17';

$end_date = '2009-09-05';

$date_from_user = '2009-08-28';

check_in_range($start_date, $end_date, $date_from_user);


function check_in_range($start_date, $end_date, $date_from_user)
{
  // Convert to timestamp
  $start_ts = strtotime($start_date);
  $end_ts = strtotime($end_date);
  $user_ts = strtotime($date_from_user);

  // Check that user date is between start & end
  return (($user_ts >= $start_ts) && ($user_ts <= $end_ts));
}

Answer 5

No, it's not necessary to convert to timestamp to do the comparison, given that the strings are validated as dates in 'YYYY-MM-DD' canonical format.

This test will work:

( ( $date_from_user >= $start_date ) && ( $date_from_user <= $end_date ) )

given:

$start_date     = '2009-06-17';
$end_date       = '2009-09-05';
$date_from_user = '2009-08-28';

NOTE: comparing strings allows for "non-valid" dates e.g. '2009-13-32' and for weirdly formatted strings '2009/3/3', such that the string comparison is not equivalent to a date or timestamp comparison.

[ADDENDUM]

If you do go for the php timestamp conversion, be aware of the limitations.

On some platforms, php does not support timestamp values earlier than 1970-01-01 and/or later than 2038-01-19. (That's the nature of the unix timestamp 32-bit integer.) Later versions pf php (5.3?) are supposed to address that.

The timezone can also be an issue, if you aren't careful to use the same timezone when converting from string to timestamp and from timestamp back to string.

HTH

Answer 6

In the format you've provided, assuming the user is smart enough to give you valid dates, you don't need to convert to a date first, you can compare them as strings.