Get previous months from string [closed] - php

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I need to echo 3 previous months from a string.
$monthyear = "01/2015";
OUTPUT
12/2014
11/2014
10/2014

Answer 1

Go ahead and try the following:
<?php
// Given string:
$monthyear = "01/2015";
// Init DateTime object:
$datetime = new DateTime();
// Create a new datetime instance, and parse given string:
$date = $datetime->createFromFormat('m/Y', $monthyear);
// Loop for 3 iterations:
for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {
// Print current date:
echo $i . ". " . ($date->format('m/Y')) . "<br>";
// Reduce one month:
$date = date_add($date, date_interval_create_from_date_string('-1 months'));
}
?>
Yealds:
1. 01/2015
2. 12/2014
3. 11/2014
You can test this code in phpfiddle.org
Sources:
PHP createFromFormat
PHP date_add

Answer 2

So what you're trying to do here is get a range of dates (3 months ago to now) at a specific interval (1 month). This is easily done with something like PHP's DatePeriod class.
First you need to create a DateTime object from that string, which you can do using something like DateTime::createFromFormat. This DateTime object can be used as your ending range.
$endRange = DateTimeImmutable::createFromFormat("m/Y", $monthyear);
Second, you can subtract 3 months from that DateTime object using DateTime::sub in order to get the starting range. To do this you use a DateInterval object to specify the interval of time you wish to subtract from the DateTime object.
$startRange = $endRange->sub(new DateInterval('P3M'));
Finally, you can create your DatePeriod object using the $startRange and $endRange along with a DateInterval of 1 month and traverse the object to get the 3 desired dates.
$period = new DatePeriod($startRange, new DateInterval('P1M'), $endRange);
foreach($period as $date) {
echo $date->format("m/Y");
}
This should give you the desired dates 10/2014, 11/2014, and 12/2014.