Question

Stack Overflow Community,

I have always appreciated your wisdom and assistance. Here is my situation:

Here is a snippet of my XML file (this is a very small portion of it):

    <matchup id="1" date="09/08/11" time="7:30 PM">
        <away city="New Orleans">Saints</away>
        <home city="Green Bay">Packers</home>
        <finalscore>
            <away></away>
            <home></home>
        </finalscore>
    </matchup>

Okay, so using SimpleXML I am getting this XML data and storing it into respective PHP variables. The only thing I really need help with is the date/time section.

I am wanting to basically compare the date/time of the matchup to the current time. If the time of the matchup has already passed (or started for that matter), I want to display a different output.

So here is my PHP, but something is not working correctly here:

foreach($week->matchup as $matchup)
{
$game_time = $matchup['time'];
$game_date = $matchup['date'];

date_default_timezone_set('US/Eastern');
$game_date2 = strtotime($game_date);
$game_date3 = date('m/d/y', $game_date2);
$time_stamp = strtotime($game_time);
$check = date("g:i A", $time_stamp);
$date_now = date('m/d/y');
$time_now = date('g:i A');

if ($game_date3 >= $date_now && $check >= $time_now) {

?>
<tr>
<td class="two"><?php echo $game_date ?></td>
<td class="two">
<input type="radio" id="<?php echo $away_city ?> <?php echo $away_teamname ?>" class="radio" name="<?php echo $week_name ?>" value="<?php echo $away_city ?> <?php echo $away_teamname ?>"></input>
    <?php echo $away_full ?>
</td>
<td class="two">
<input type="radio" id="<?php echo $home_city ?> <?php echo $home_teamname ?>" class="radio" name="<?php echo $week_name ?>" value="<?php echo $home_city ?> <?php echo $home_teamname ?>"></input>
    <?php echo $home_full ?>
</td>
<td class="two"><?php echo $game_time ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
} else {
?>
<tr>
<td class="two"><?php echo $game_date ?></td>
<td class="two">
<span><?php echo $away_full ?></span>
</td>
<td class="two">
<span><?php echo $home_full ?></span>
</td>
<td class="two"><?php echo $game_time ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}
    } ?>

As you can see here, what I am trying to do is simply check if the date/time from the XML is past the time of the current time. If it is, I want to display an output WITHOUT input radio buttons. If it is not past the current time, I want to display the output WITH input radio buttons.

I think the problem is somewhere in my variable setting with strtotime and getting the XML date/time to parse properly against the server time.

I hope someone can help me figure this out! Also, any recommendations to make this more concise and secure is appreciated as well.

Answer 1

You can’t compare date strings. You need to convert them to timestamps using strtotime then compare them.

Like this:

$date = '09/08/11 7:30 PM';

if (strtotime($date) < time()) {
    // $date is in the past
}

So in your case:

$game_time = $matchup['time'];
$game_date = $matchup['date'];
$date = "{$game_date} {$game_time}";

if (strtotime($date) < time()) {
    // $date is in the past
}