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PHP remove expired date from array

Hello,
I have an array of dates.

$dates="02/07/09,02/28/09,03/07/09,03/28/09";

I am trying to display three dates from array:

$date1 = $dates[0];
$date2 = $dates[1];
$date3 = $dates[2];

What's the best way to go about only displaying upcoming dates and not displaying dates that have passed.

Thanks in advance.

Zoppo

Hi tmbdesign,

you can try somthing like this:

> $str="02/07/09,02/28/09,03/07/09,03/28/09";
> $dates = explode( ",", $str );
> $date_now = date_create();
> foreach( $dates as $date )
> {
> if ( date_create( $date ) > $date_now )
> {
> echo $date . "<br>\n";
> }
> }

Output is:

> 02/28/09
> 03/07/09
> 03/28/09

Hope that helps,

ZOPPO

tmbdesign

ASKER

Thanks for the response ZAPPO!

I need to get each if the dates into its own variable. How would I change your code to accomplish this?

Thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Zoppo

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Ray Paseur

As a practical matter, all your date-related code will work better if you use ISO8601-format dates. In PHP, this is date('c') - YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS

And your code will be more reliable and easier to write if you use strtotime() and date() together.

i will post an example for this problem in a moment, ~Ray

Ray Paseur

<?php // RAY_expired_dates.php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
echo "<pre>"; // READABILITY
 
// TEST DATA WITH AN ERROR DELIBERATELY INSERTED
$dates="02/07/09,02/28/09,03/07/09,FOO,03/28/09";
 
// MAKE THE TEST DATA INTO AN ARRAY
$date_array = explode(',', $dates);
 
// CONVERT TO A SUBSET OF ISO8601
$iso_date_array = array();
foreach ($date_array as $ptr => $date_thing)
{
   if (!$ts = strtotime($date_thing))
   {
      echo "BOGUS DATE IN $date_thing AT OFFSET $ptr \n";
      continue;
   } else {
      $iso_date_array[] = date('Y-m-d', $ts);
   }
}
 
// VISUALIZE THE DATA
var_dump($iso_date_array);
 
 
// GET TODAY
$today = date('Y-m-d');
echo "TODAY: $today \n \n";
 
// SHOW DATES THAT ARE IN THE PAST
foreach ($iso_date_array as $iso_date_thing)
{
   if ("$iso_date_thing" <  "$today") echo "PAST: $iso_date_thing\n";
   if ("$iso_date_thing" == "$today") echo "TODAY: $iso_date_thing \n";
   if ("$iso_date_thing" >  "$today") echo "FUTURE: $iso_date_thing \n";
}

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tmbdesign

ASKER

Not a problem at all for my application!

Works great.

Thanks Zoppo!!

tmbdesign

ASKER

Good advice.

Thanks for the tip Ray.