How Can I Accurately Compare Dates in Custom Formats in PHP?

Comparing Dates in PHP in Custom Format

In PHP, comparing dates can be tricky, especially if the dates are in a custom format such as '03_01_12' and '31_12_11'. Using the standard strtotime() function may not produce the expected results.

Solution:

To effectively compare dates in a custom format, we can employ the DateTime::createFromFormat() method. This method takes the custom format and the date string as parameters and returns a DateTime object.

$format = "d_m_y";
$date1  = \DateTime::createFromFormat($format, "03_01_12");
$date2  = \DateTime::createFromFormat($format, "31_12_11");

Once we have DateTime objects, we can use the comparison operator (>, <, ==) to compare the dates.

var_dump($date1 > $date2); // Output: true

In this example, $date1 represents the date '03_01_12' ('03 January 2012'), and $date2 represents the date '31_12_11' ('31 December 2011'). Since 03_01_12 is after 31_12_11, the comparison operator returns true.
This solution ensures accurate date comparison even when the dates are in a non-standard format.
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