What are some best practices for storing and comparing dates in a multidimensional array in PHP?

Storing and comparing dates in a multidimensional array in PHP can be tricky due to the different date formats and timezones. To ensure consistency, it's best to store dates in a standardized format like Unix timestamp or ISO 8601. When comparing dates, convert them to a common format before making any comparisons to avoid unexpected results. 

// Storing dates in ISO 8601 format in a multidimensional array
$dates = [
    ['date' => '2022-01-15'],
    ['date' => '2022-01-20'],
    ['date' => '2022-02-10']
];

// Comparing dates in the array
$currentDate = date('Y-m-d');
foreach ($dates as $date) {
    if (strtotime($date['date']) < strtotime($currentDate)) {
        echo "{$date['date']} is in the past.\n";
    } else {
        echo "{$date['date']} is in the future.\n";
    }
}

Keywords

date multidimensional array comparison PHP functions data storage

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