Compare date and hour

Question

I have 3 attributes, first one dateExam (format date) , second one startTime and and th third one is endTime with format (time).

I'd like if those attributes are betwwen the current date and time so display the exam. I tried to convert those attributes in timestamp to compare them but I failed

edit - code added

$startDate = strtotime($dateExam.$startTime); 
$endDate = strtotime($dateExam.$endTime); 
if($startDate >= time() <= $endDate) { 
    echo'..............' ; 
}

Answer 1

Assuming ISO 8601 formats for dates and times:

$examStartTime = new DateTime($dateExam . ' ' . $startTime);
$examEndTime   = new DateTime($dateExam . ' ' . $endTime);
$now           = new DateTime();
if ($now > $examStartTime  && $now < $examEndTime) {
    // it's exam time!
}

DateTime() objects are comparable, so once you populate them with their appropriate dates and times, checking to see if one is between two others becomes and easy (to write and read).

The problem you had with your code was due to your comparison of the dates. PHP doesn't support expression1 logicalOperator expression2 logicalOperator expression3 (concatenating logical operations) like some languages do. I also think you need a space between the date and time elements.

$startDate = strtotime($dateExam.' '.$startTime); 
$endDate = strtotime($dateExam.' '.$endTime); 
if($startDate >= time() && time() <= $endDate) { 

The above should work, though.