How to alter CSS properties using PHP based on a conditional - php

Question

I'm working on a website that manages food. Keeping track of expiration dates and the such.
When a users dashboard loads, it shows a list of the food items they've currently added along with info about them, Brand, Location (Fridge,Pantry,Freezer), and expiration date.
I have the items in a html table, drawing their values from php echos of the rows of a food table I created.
What I want to do is change the text of the expiration date to red when there is about a 3 day difference between the current date and the set expiration date.
Here's my code for putting the values in the table.
<?php
while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($sql2))
{
?>
<tr>
<td><b><?php echo $rows['Name'] ?></td>
<td><b><?php echo $rows['Brand'] ?></td>
<td><b><?php echo $rows['Type'] ?></td>
<td><b><?php echo $rows['Container'] ?></td>
<td><b><?php echo $rows['ExpirationDate'] ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}
?>
$sql2 holds a query of all the foods owned by the user.
So how would I create a conditional that would make this work out?

Answer 1

$date1 = new DateTime("now");
$date2 = $rows['ExpirationDate'];
$difference = $date1->diff($date2);
$days = $difference->d;
$class = '';
if ($days <= 3)
$class = 'class="expired"';
Then add the $class variable to each table cell. If the difference between dates is 3 days or less, it will add class="expired" otherwise it will add nothing. Then just style the .expired class to have red text.
You will most likely have to format your $date2 variable, but how to do that depends on the format it's currently in...

Answer 2

You can assign a different class to the expiration date when it's getting close.
Something like:
<td><b><?php
$exptime = strtotime($rows['ExpirationDate']);
if ($exptime - time() < 3*24*60*60){
$class = 'expBad';
}else{
$class = 'expOK';
}
echo "<span class=\"$class\">".$rows['ExpirationDate']."</span>" ?></td>
Then in your .css you can define the class expBad to be red.
span.expBad {
color: red;
}