What is the recommended method to convert a date to a timestamp for comparison in PHP?

When comparing dates in PHP, it is recommended to convert the dates to timestamps for accurate comparison. This can be achieved by using the strtotime() function to convert the date string to a Unix timestamp. Once both dates are converted to timestamps, you can easily compare them using standard comparison operators. 

$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

PHP date timestamp comparison conversion

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