How can I loop dates for a specified time? - php

Question

I need to loop dates, according to different $eventname. I was already able to write a script that adds one week to the original date, but I don't know how I can loop it for a defined time.
code used:
$eventname = $event->title;
// TODO: loop for specified times if $eventname contains definded strings
$start_date = helper('com://site/ohanah.date.format', array(
'date' => $event->start,
'format' => 'Y/m/d H:i',
'timezone' => 'UTC'
));
$date = strtotime($start_date) + 604800;
echo "<pre>";
echo date('d. F Y, H:i', $date);
echo ' - ';
echo helper('com://site/ohanah.date.format', array(
'date' => $event->end,
'format' => 'H:i',
'timezone' => 'UTC'
));
echo "</pre>";
Output: (start date would be one week before) 18. April 2018, 14:00 - 16:00
So my question is, how can I loop this that the output is e.g. 6 times with one week space between each of them?

Answer 1

When working with dates and times, do not add seconds to timestamps or something like that, because it will get you in trouble in leapyears and daylight saving times, because one day is not always 86400 seconds.
Better use PHP's DateTime and DateInterval classes.
<?php
$Date = new DateTime("2018-03-03 14:00:00");
for($i=0;$i<6;$i++) { //loop 6 times
$Date->add(new DateInterval('P1W')); //add one week
echo $Date->format("Y-m-d H:i:s").PHP_EOL;
}
Output:
2018-03-10 14:00:00
2018-03-17 14:00:00
2018-03-24 14:00:00
2018-03-31 14:00:00
2018-04-07 14:00:00
See also:
http://php.net/manual/en/class.datetime.php
http://php.net/manual/en/class.dateinterval.php

Answer 2

Something like that?
<?php
$oneWeek = 604800;
$date = '2018-04-05';
$dates = array($date);
for ($i = 0; $i < 6; $i++) {
$dates[] = $date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($date) + $oneWeek);
}
var_dump($dates);

Answer 3

I am not entirely sure I understand the question, but it looks like you want to have a condition that will either set a specific number of times for the output loop or determine whether the loop is ran that number of times.
If so, you can set a counter variable with your condition, then run the loop that number of times, defaulting the counter variable to 1 in the case that you do not want to output more than one time:
$eventname = $event->title;
// TODO: loop for specified times if $eventname contains definded strings
$counter = (/*your condition for $eventname*/) ? 6 : 1;
for ($x = 0; $x < $counter; $x++) {
$start_date = helper('com://site/ohanah.date.format', array(
'date' => $event->start,
'format' => 'Y/m/d H:i',
'timezone' => 'UTC'
));
$date = strtotime($start_date) + 604800;
echo "<pre>";
echo date('d. F Y, H:i', $date);
echo ' - ';
echo helper('com://site/ohanah.date.format', array(
'date' => $event->end,
'format' => 'H:i',
'timezone' => 'UTC'
));
echo "</pre>";
}