comparing dates - not working

[coiL]

Hi,

I'm trying to compare to dates/times. If one date is greater then the other, then it should do something. However it's not working.

I have

 <?php
 
   //Check the close date of each job
   if ($current_date >= $closed_date) {
      $status = "Closed";
      
     // Change the status in the DB to closed
     $sql = "UPDATE jobs SET status = 0 where id = '$job_id'";
     $result = @mysql_query($sql,$db) or die(mysql_error());
      
   } else {
    $status = "Open";
   }
 
?>

No matter what the dates entered are, the status is always set to closed. As an example, I echo'd out the times I was comparing

closed: 22 03 2003 : 17:00 PM
current: 22 03 2003 : 14:18 PM

obviously, 14:18pm is not greater then 17:00pm , so why isn't it working?

[firepages]

what format are $current_date &&$closed_date in ?

if they are unix timestamps then it should work if not then probably not , i.e. string comparison can work sometimes with dates and numbers but not always nor is it really supposed to.

[redemption]

Funny it doesn't work, if the strings are in the format you posted.

In any case, it's best to compare timestamps. You can use mktime() to convert your date to a UNIX timestamp for comparison purposes.