Compare given date with today

Question

I have following

$var = \"2010-01-21 00:00:00.0\"

I\'d like to compare this date against today\'s date (i.e. I\'d like to know if this

Answer 1

$date1=date_create("2014-07-02");
$date2=date_create("2013-12-12");
$diff=date_diff($date1,$date2);

(the w3schools example, it works perfect)