How do I compare two DateTime objects in PHP 5.2.8?

Question

Having a look on the PHP documentation, the following two methods of the DateTime object would both seem to solve my problem:

• DateTime::diff : Get

Answer 1

If you want to compare dates and not time, you could use this:

$d1->format("Y-m-d") == $d2->format("Y-m-d")

Answer 2

$elapsed = '2592000';
// Time in the past
$time_past = '2014-07-16 11:35:33';
$time_past = strtotime($time_past);

// Add a month to that time
$time_past = $time_past + $elapsed;

// Time NOW
$time_now = time();

// Check if its been a month since time past
if($time_past > $time_now){
    echo 'Hasnt been a month';    
}else{
    echo 'Been longer than a month';
}

Answer 3

The following seems to confirm that there are comparison operators for the DateTime class:

dev:~# php
<?php
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

$d1 = new DateTime('2008-08-03 14:52:10');
$d2 = new DateTime('2008-01-03 11:11:10');
var_dump($d1 == $d2);
var_dump($d1 > $d2);
var_dump($d1 < $d2);
?>
bool(false)
bool(true)
bool(false)
dev:~# php -v
PHP 5.2.6-1+lenny3 with Suhosin-Patch 0.9.6.2 (cli) (built: Apr 26 2009 20:09:03)
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies
dev:~#

Answer 4

You can also compare epoch seconds :

$d1->format('U') < $d2->format('U')

Source : http://laughingmeme.org/2007/02/27/looking-at-php5s-datetime-and-datetimezone/ (quite interesting article about DateTime)

Answer 5

From the official documentation:

As of PHP 5.2.2, DateTime objects can be compared using comparison operators.

$date1 = new DateTime("now");
$date2 = new DateTime("tomorrow");

var_dump($date1 == $date2); // false
var_dump($date1 < $date2); // true
var_dump($date1 > $date2); // false

For PHP versions before 5.2.2 (actually for any version), you can use diff.

$datetime1 = new DateTime('2009-10-11'); // 11 October 2013
$datetime2 = new DateTime('2009-10-13'); // 13 October 2013

$interval = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);
echo $interval->format('%R%a days'); // +2 days

Answer 6

As of PHP 7.x, you can use the following:

$aDate = new \DateTime('@'.(time()));
$bDate = new \DateTime('@'.(time() - 3600));

$aDate <=> $bDate; // => 1, `$aDate` is newer than `$bDate`