Time and again date parsing issue comes up and I find myself looking all over the net for finding ways to do the same. This post is created to compile all such ways as I encounter:
Parsing Dates
If your date format is: yyyy-mm-dd, you can simply use strtotime and date function to get the desired date format
$data[] = date( 'd-m-Y', strtotime('2012-03-21')); //get the format as 21-03-2012
Get Dates Using Strotime
strtotime can recognize certain keywords.
<?php
echo strtotime('now');
echo strtotime('+4 days');
echo strtotime('+1 month');
echo strtotime('next monday');
echo strtotime('+2 weeks 3 days 4 hours 23 minutes');
?>
Compare Dates:
<?php
// your first date coming from a mysql database (date fields)
$dateA = '2008-03-01 13:34';
// your second date coming from a mysql database (date fields)
$dateB = '2007-04-14 15:23';
if(strtotime($dateA) > strtotime($dateB)){
// bla bla
}
?>
Get First and Last Date of a Month:
<?php
$first_date_curr = date('Y-m-01'); //First Date of The Current Month
$last_date_curr = date('Y-m-t'); //Last Date of The Current Month
$first_date_prev = date('Y-m-01', strtotime('-1 month')); //First Date of the Previous Month
$last_date_prev = date('Y-m-t', strtotime('-1 month')); //Last Date of the Previous Month
?>
Source:
http://www.thetricky.net/php/Compare%20dates%20with%20PHP