PHP Checking if the current date is before or after a set date

Question

Im pulling a date from a database which is formatted like dd-mm-YYYY.

What I want to do is check the current date;

• if the current date is before the date com

Answer 1

I wanted to set a specific date so have used this to do stuff before 2nd December 2013

if(mktime(0,0,0,12,2,2013) > strtotime('now')) {
    // do stuff
}

The 0,0,0 is midnight, the 12 is the month, the 2 is the day and the 2013 is the year.