PHP loop through array and check dates - php

Question

I have a form in my app. This form consists of 2 textfields type='date'. Now, when two dates are given, the dates are send to a PHP-script that translates the dates with strtotime.
The PHP-script makes a connection to a mySQL database that returns a result with requests. I would like to loop through all requests and check if the date of the request is BETWEEN the two dates that where sent by the form.
What happens now:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM Requests";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
if($result) {
foreach ($result as $row){
$return[]=array('employeeid'=>$row['employeeid']
'id'=>$row['id'],
'startdate'=>$row['startdate'],
'enddate'=>$row['enddate'],
'type'=>$row['type'],
'reason'=>$row['reason']);
}
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo '' . json_encode($return) .'';
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
The code above generates a perfect json-file with the requests. But as I mentioned I would like to check whether the startdate of the requests above is between the two dates that are send by the form.
Something like this:
if (($request_startdate >= $startdate) && ($request_startdate <= $enddate)) {
//generate array with the requests
} else {
//no requests between dates.
}
But how to loop through the requests and check the startdate?
Thanks in advance.
Jan

Answer 1

You are taking the hard way, it's easier to add a where statment to your select query:
I assume that your form have two fields named date1, date2
$sql = "SELECT * FROM Requests where startdate>:date1 and enddate<:date2";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindValue(':date1',$_POST['date1'],PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->bindValue(':date2',$_POST['date2'],PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

Answer 2

Convert your string inputs to DateTime and format it to ISO date format (or at least make sure they are in a format that mySQL accepts)
$sdt = DateTime::createFromFormat('format of your input', $request_startdate);
$edt = DateTime::createFromFormat('format of your input', $request_enddate);
Modify your sql to query only the rows that you want to use:
SELECT * FROM Requests
WHERE startdate <= :sdt AND :edt >= :edt
Then bind your parameters (see php doc):
$stmt->bindParam(':sdt', $sdt->format('YYYY-mm-dd 00:00:00'), PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->bindParam(':edt', $edt->format('YYYY-mm-dd 23:59:59'), PDO::PARAM_STR);