Build date range - php

Question

I have a start date of 20090101 and an end date of 20091130 and I'm trying to build and array of all the months in between, which would look like this:
<?php
/* ... */
$arrDates['Jan'] = 2009;
$arrDates['Feb'] = 2009;
$arrDates['Mar'] = 2009;
/* ... */
?>
How can I do this?

Answer 1

I don't fully understand your array structure.
But maybe this helps: When using PHP 5.3 you can use code like below to get an iterator with all months in the given range:
<?php
$db = new DateTime( '2009-01-01 00:00:00' );
$de = new DateTime( '2009-11-30 23:59:59' );
$di = DateInterval::createFromDateString( 'first day of next month' );
foreach ( $di as $dt )
{
echo $dt->format( "Y-m\n" );
}
?>

Answer 2

The following snippet creates such an array:
$startDate = '20090101';
$endDate = '20091130';
$arrDates = array();
$cur = strtotime($startDate);
$end = strtotime($endDate);
while ($cur < $end) {
$arrDates[date('M', $cur)] = date('Y', $cur);
$cur = mktime(0, 0, 0, date('m', $cur) + 1, 1, date('Y', $cur));
}
// If you want to add the 'end' month too...
$arrDates[date('M', $end)] = date('Y', $end);
However, note that, as danii commented, you are unclear about how you want to handle a timespan that is larger than a year. The code above will simply use the last year in the range you provide.
This code will work with pretty much any version of PHP (PHP 4+). If you want a more elegant solution and are using PHP 5.2+, I recommend the solution offered by GZipp.

Answer 3

I had a similar situation for a website i was building for travelagency. You need timestamps, arrays and looping. Take a look at the date function PHP provides. It gives you some interesting options to play with dates. E.g. the no. of days in a specified month.

Answer 4

You say "the months in between", but since your example includes the starting month, I assume you mean "the months in between plus the starting and ending months".
$dt_start = new DateTime('20090101');
$dt_end = new DateTime('20091130');
$arrDates[] = $dt_start->format('M');
while ($dt_start->modify('first day of next month') <= $dt_end) {
$arrDates[] = $dt_start->format('M'); // Or whatever you want to do with it.
}
(This is essentially johannes' solution with a little manual reading applied to adapt it for PHP 5.2.)

Answer 5

You can't use the month as a key, the key must be unique or if your range spans more than a year it won't work correctly.
This will return an array with Mon-Year as the key
function foo($startdate, $enddate) {
// create a timestamp for start date
if(!preg_match('/^(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})$/', $startdate, $m)) die('Invalid start date format');
$start_time = mktime(0, 0, 0, $m[2], $m[3], $m[1]);
// create a timestamp for end date
if(!preg_match('/^(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})$/', $enddate, $m)) die('Invalid end date format');
$end_time = mktime(23, 59, 59, $m[2], $m[3], $m[1]);
// build the array of months by incrementing $start_time by one month through each iteration
$ret = array();
while($start_time < $end_time) {
$ret[date('M-Y', $start_time)] = date('Y', $start_time);
$start_time = strtotime(date('m/d/Y', $start_time).' +1month');
}
return $ret;
}
$arrDates = foo('20090101', '20111130');
print_r($arrDates);
Array(
[Jan-2009] => 2009
[Feb-2009] => 2009
[Mar-2009] => 2009
[Apr-2009] => 2009
[May-2009] => 2009
[Jun-2009] => 2009
[Jul-2009] => 2009
[Aug-2009] => 2009
....
)

Answer 6

A bit convoluted but works...:
function buildDateRange($strStartDate, $strEndDate)
{
$strStartM = date('M', $strStartDate);
$strStartY = date('Y', $strStartDate);
$strEndM = date('M', $strEndDate);
$strEndY = date('Y', $strEndDate);
$intCurMN = date('m', $strStartDate);
$ii = 0;
$blnFinished = FALSE;
while(!$blnFinished)
{
$strCurM = date('M', mktime(0, 0, 0, $intCurMN , "01", $strStartY));
$strCurY = date('Y' ,mktime(0, 0, 0, $intCurMN , "01", $strStartY));
$arrSearchDates [$strCurM] = $strCurY;
$intCurMN = date('m', mktime(0, 0, 0, $intCurMN+1 , "01", $strStartY));
if($strEndM == $strCurM && $strEndY == $strCurY)
{
$blnFinished = TRUE;
}
}
Return ($arrSearchDates);
}