What are some best practices for comparing dates in PHP when working with "datetime" fields?

When comparing dates in PHP with "datetime" fields, it's important to ensure that the dates are properly formatted and compared using the correct methods to avoid any unexpected results. One best practice is to convert the datetime strings into DateTime objects and then compare them using the DateTime methods such as `diff()` or `compare()`.

$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01 12:00:00');
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-02 12:00:00');

if ($date1 < $date2) {
    echo "Date 1 is before Date 2";
} elseif ($date1 > $date2) {
    echo "Date 1 is after Date 2";
} else {
    echo "Date 1 is equal to Date 2";
}