How can the use of strtotime function improve the efficiency of date comparison in PHP for the given scenario?

When comparing dates in PHP, converting them to a timestamp using the strtotime function can improve efficiency as it allows for simple integer comparison rather than complex string comparisons. This can make date comparisons faster and more straightforward. 

$date1 = "2022-01-15";
$date2 = "2022-01-20";

$timestamp1 = strtotime($date1);
$timestamp2 = strtotime($date2);

if ($timestamp1 < $timestamp2) {
    echo "$date1 is before $date2";
} elseif ($timestamp1 > $timestamp2) {
    echo "$date1 is after $date2";
} else {
    echo "$date1 is the same as $date2";
}

Keywords

strtotime date comparison efficiency PHP scenario

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