What are the potential pitfalls of using the date function in PHP for date comparisons?

One potential pitfall of using the date function in PHP for date comparisons is that it does not take into account time zones, which can lead to inaccurate comparisons. To solve this issue, you can use the DateTime class in PHP, which allows you to specify the time zone when creating date objects.

$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-02', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

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