Auto date inclusion?

PHP
1

Is there any way, in PHP, to automatically include a particular date in a page, which is always the date of the last Thursday please ?

2

Enter the magic of [fphp]strtotime[/fphp]! :magic:


<?php
echo date('r', strtotime('last Thursday'));
#Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000
?>
3

Hi Anthony, many thanks for the quick help. This code would always be for the last Thursday, whenever that might be. So, not always the 11th of November.

4

Yep. :slight_smile:

5

Thanks Anthony, it’s appreciated. That’s a very clever bit of code !

Trying to get it to arrive at the format of :
15th of November 2010

am trying :
<?php
echo date(‘r’, strtotime(‘last Thursday’));
#Thursday, 11th of November 2010
?>

and that didn’t work, did look through the link as well, but couldn’t seem to find it there either.

6

Dez, the first argument of of the [fphp]date[/fphp] function is the date format string. (in this case ‘r’). You pass in a string to get the date in the format you wish. List of format string here.

e.g.
Y-m-d is 2010-11-11
j F is 11 November.

7

Thanks, so to get a format of - 11th of November 2010 (with the ‘th’), what exact format would I need please ? Did look through both links and tried

<?php
echo date(‘r’, strtotime(‘last Thursday’));
#jS \of F Y
?>

and that didn’t work either :sick:

8

Maybe this will clear things up.


<?php
echo date('r', strtotime('last Thursday'));
#Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

echo date('jS \\of F Y', strtotime('last Thursday'));
#11th of November 2010

echo date(DATE_ATOM, strtotime('last Thursday'));
#2010-11-11T00:00:00+00:00
?>

Can you see what part we’re changing?

The # is just a comment and does not affect the code or output at all. It is merely there to demonstrate the output to you. :wink:

9

Aaaah, many thanks Anthony, much appreciated. I kept seeing the bit after the # and I couldn’t work out why it was there :slight_smile:

Problem all solved !

10

Actually, and it’s probably beyond the powers of this coding, but is it possible, to do a similar function, in exactly the same date format, but where it gives a day and date from two weekdays ago, (ie, it always excludes Saturdays and Sundays) ? ?

11

So, 2 working days ago?

12

Yep, that would be it, Anthony.

13

ah, a very rough example would be something like…


<?php
function two_workdays_prior($from = null){

  if(null === $from){
    $date = strtotime('-2 days');
  }else{
    $date = strtotime('-2 days', (int)$from);
  }

  switch(date('D', $date))
  {
    case 'Sat':
      $date = strtotime('-1 days', $date);
    break;

    case 'Sun':
      $date = strtotime('-2 days', $date);
    break;

    default:
    break;
  }

  return $date;
}

echo date('r', two_workdays_prior());
#Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:26:42 +0000

echo date('r', two_workdays_prior(strtotime('-4 days')));
#Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:31:45 +0000
?>
14

Anthony, you’re an absolute blinkin’ gem :slight_smile: Problem now definitely solved. Funnily enough, it was what I wanted from the start really, but never thought it was possible, so didn’t think to ask. Darn clever stuff this PHP malarkey !

Many, many thanks for your patience and help - much appreciated. :slight_smile:

15

Ha, you’re always welcome. :wink:

You know where I am if needs be.

Anthony.

16 
// Works correctly as of PHP 5.2.7
echo date('r', strtotime('-2 weekdays'));
17

Woah…

18

strtotime is magic. Apparently these work too:


echo date('r', strtotime('When did I last go to the dentist?'));
echo date('r', strtotime('my birthday'));
echo date('r', strtotime('the day my car insurance is due'));
19

Many thanks Salathe - this looks leaner, so will go with this one. The helps much appreciated.