PHP DateTime Textual Representation - php

Question

I wonder if it is possible to get this as an ouput using PHP DateTime:
'first thursday of February 2021'
The other way round were
$date = new DateTime('first thursday of February 2021');
What I have to accomplish: I have a given date and want to know, if it is the first thursday or not without building the date and comparing dates after this like:
$date = new DateTime('first thursday of February 2021');
$given_date = new DateTime('2021-02-04');
return ($given_date == $date);
Anyone?
I forgot: my given date can be the second saturday in march or the third friday in june and so on.
I will explain a little further for those who doesn't understand my question. Imaging a time table which says: all thursdays office is open from 8am to 5pm but first thursday in march office will open at 7am and closes at 6pm. Now a customer wants to schedule a meeting and we have only a date but must know: is it the first thursday or not. My database holds such information like day, month and possibly position in month. My solution now is a loop to determine the position in month.
private function getPositionInMonth(DateTime $date)
{
$positions = ['first', 'second', 'third', 'fourth', 'fifth'];
$day_name = $date->format('l');
foreach ($positions as $i => $position) {
$str = $position . ' ' . $day_name . ' ' . $date->format('F') . ' ' . $date->format('Y');
$test_date = new DateTime($str);
if ($test_date->format('d.m.Y') == $date->format('d.m.Y')) {
return ($i + 1);
}
}
}
All other information can be fetched in the sql query.

Answer 1

A DateTime object should be formatted as a string like "first thursday of February 2021".
function formatNoWeekday(Datetime $date){
$no = ['first','second','third','fourth','fifth'];
$day = $date->format('j');
$frm = $date->format(' l \o\f F Y');
foreach($no as $n){
$strDate = $n.$frm;
if(date_create($strDate)->format('j') == $day){
return $strDate;
}
}
return false;
}
$result = formatNoWeekday(date_create('2021-02-16'));
//"third Tuesday of February 2021"

Answer 2

Solved it with a tiny bit of math like CBroe suggested:
private function getPositionInMonth(DateTime $date)
{
$test_date = new DateTime($date->format('Y-m-') . '01');
$diff = round(($date->getTimestamp() - $test_date->getTimestamp()) / 86400, 0);
if($diff < 7) {
return 1;
}
return (int)($diff / 7) + 1;
}
That function will give the position in month.
(Diff calculation fixed, DateTime gives d=0 and m=1 for the 29th of march, now it works. If you find any date which fails please mention it)

Answer 3

DateTime object supports relative formats. For this you can call method modify
<?php
$date = new DateTime('now');
$date->modify('first thursday of February 2021');
$given_date = new DateTime('2021-02-04');
return ($given_date == $date);
DateTime::modify
Relative Formats