How to Check If the Current Date/Time Is Past a Set Date/Time

Get current time and check if time has passed a certain period

Use the Java 8+ Time API class LocalTime:

LocalTime refTime = LocalTime.of(13, 0); // 1:00 PM

// Check if now > refTime, in default time zone
LocalTime now = LocalTime.now();
if (now.isAfter(refTime)) {
    // passed
}

// Check if now >= refTime, in pacific time zone
LocalTime now = LocalTime.now(ZoneId.of("America/Los_Angeles"))
if (now.compareTo(refTime) >= 0) {
    // passed
}

How to check if the date is in the past in PHP?

Using strtotime():

if(strtotime($date)<strtotime("today")){
    echo "past";
} elseif(strtotime($date)==strtotime("today")){
    echo "today";
} else {
    echo "future";
}

How can I check if the current date/time is past a set date/time in variable time zones?

Using DateTime, you can specify a time and time zone then compare to the current time:

$date = new DateTime('2017-05-05 07:00:00', new DateTimeZone('TimezoneID'));
return ($date->getTimestamp() < time());

PHP Check if date is past to a certain date given in a certain format

You can compare the dates with PHP's DateTime class:

$date = new DateTime($event['date']);
$now = new DateTime();

if($date < $now) {
    echo 'date is in the past';
}

Note: Using DateTime class is preferred over strtotime() since the latter will only work for dates before 2038. Read more about the Year_2038_problem.

PHP Checking if the current date is before or after a set date

if( strtotime($database_date) > strtotime('now') ) {
...

PHP check if date and time has passed 15 minutes

You can convert the date to a timestamp with strtotime (which supports the MySQL date format) and then compare it to the current timestamp from time.

$dbtimestamp = strtotime($datefromdb);
if (time() - $dbtimestamp > 15 * 60) {
    // 15 mins has passed
}

To compare the dates, you can use date to get the year/month/day from the timestamp and then compare them against the current date.

if (date("Y-m-d", $dbtimestamp) != date("Y-m-d")) {
    // different date
}

PHP date time greater than today

You are not comparing dates. You are comparing strings. In the world of string comparisons, 09/17/2015 > 01/02/2016 because 09 > 01. You need to either put your date in a comparable string format or compare DateTime objects which are comparable.

<?php
 $date_now = date("Y-m-d"); // this format is string comparable

if ($date_now > '2016-01-02') {
    echo 'greater than';
}else{
    echo 'Less than';
}

Demo

<?php
 $date_now = new DateTime();
 $date2    = new DateTime("01/02/2016");

if ($date_now > $date2) {
    echo 'greater than';
}else{
    echo 'Less than';
}