Date Specific If Statements with PHP

[ackerley1]

I am trying to set a promotional site up on my site so that it automatically displays the correct promotion depending on the date. For example from mid Jan to end of Feb a Valentines promo or Nov for a Thanksgiving promo and Dec for a christmas promo.

How would I write the if statements for this?

if (date >= ??? && date <= ???)
{
echo 'promo';
}
etc??

Any ideas?

[Easywebdev]

I'm not sure you can do a comparison on the date() function, never tried it.
The current time is stored as an integer so you can use that as the reference point and strtotime() to convert a date to a time integer.

Try this.

$now = time();
$promo_start = strtotime("15 January 2006");
$promo_end = strtotime("28 February 2006");

if (($now >= $promo_start) && ($now <= $promo_end))
{
promotion code
}
else
{
etc
}

[freehits]

I think you would make a timestamp for the start and end date, as well as the current date, and then compare?

mktime($hour, $minute, 0, $month, $day, $year, -1);

Just a variation on the classic countdown timer
http://elouai.com/countdown-clock.php

[krnl]

Well, this isn't the prettiest code, but it's quite simple and should work, I think...

<?
$month = date(m);
$day = date(d);

if (( $month == '12' ) && ( $day <= '25' ))
{
  doXmasPromo();
} 
else if ( $month == '11' )
{
  doThanksgivingPromo();
}
else if (( $month == '02' ) && ( $day < '20' ))
{
  doValentinePromo();
}
else
{
  doDefault();
}
?>

[danlefree]

If you're in the market for a year-round solution, a switch() statement will probably serve you well.

<?php
  switch(date("m")) {
    case 1:
      echo "January promotion...";
    break;
    case 2:
      if(date("d")==14) {
        echo "Valentine's date promo...";
      } else {
        echo "February promotion...";
      }
    break;
// ... et cetera ...
    default:
      echo "No promo";
    break;
  }
?>

[ackerley1]

Thanks krnl, That way worked very well. I will have to play with it a bit for date ranges (unless you have any ideas: Say from 15Jan to 28Feb)

If (($month == '1' || '2') && ($day == ????))

Or maybe just trigger the start of promo in the opening if, then immediately do another if to check for closing date?

What is used to break out of just the the current if statement? - break? die?

Thanks again everyone.