Select a SubArray if today date is between 2 keys value - php

Question

I have a multidimensional array like this:
$array = array(
0 => array(
'name' => 'first element',
'start' => '30/04/2015',
'end' => '30/06/2015'
),
1 => array(
'name' => 'second element',
'start' => '01/07/2015',
'end' => '30/09/2015'
),
2 => array(
'name' => 'fourth element',
'start' => '01/10/2015',
'end' => '15/12/2015'
)
);
I need to select one array subarray (item) based on the today date.
today date must be between start date and end date keys.
In the end I would like to have this:
$selected_subarray = array (
'name' => 'first element',
'start' => '30/04/2015',
'end' => '30/06/2015'
)
I use to check between two dates like this:
function check_if_in_range($start_date, $end_date, $today_date)
{
$start_d = strtotime($start_date);
$end_d = strtotime($end_date);
$today_d = strtotime($today_date);
return (($today_d >= $start_d) && ($today_d <= $end_d));
}
I tryed to follow suggestions from this question How to search by key=>value in a multidimensional array in PHP
but if I'm able to filter for a key = value, I'm not able to do the same using the "check_if_in_range" function.

Answer 1

You do know that 30/06/2015 is invalid date, and strtotime() will return false? See here. Format mm/dd/yyyy is an American month, day and year. So your format is non-standard.
Best way is to convert it to standard format, and then use strtotime()example or just use DateTime::createFromFormat()example.
After you learn how formating and converting dates works, then you can just do simple foreach loop, and break on first found result. Here is a little demo.

Answer 2

Try something like the following
foreach($array as $key => $value) {
if(check_in_range($value['start'], $value['end'], $today_date)) {
$selected_subarray = $value;
}
}