Checking if date is weekend PHP

Question

This function seems to only return false. Are any of you getting the same? I'm sure I'm overlooking something, however, fresh eyes and all that ...

function isweekend($date){
    $date = strtotime($date);
    $date = date("l", $date);
    $date = strtolower($date);
    echo $date;
    if($date == "saturday" || $date == "sunday") {
        return "true";
    } else {
        return "false";
    }
}

I call the function using the following:

$isthisaweekend = isweekend('2011-01-01');

Your `true` and `false` should not be quoted as strings. Also your code should give a parse error and not even run at all because of the stray `}` in your if. — BoltClock, Jan 26 '11 at 07:54

score 251 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 26 '11 at 07:57

251

If you have PHP >= 5.1:

function isWeekend($date) {
    return (date('N', strtotime($date)) >= 6);
}

otherwise:

function isWeekend($date) {
    $weekDay = date('w', strtotime($date));
    return ($weekDay == 0 || $weekDay == 6);
}

answered Jan 26 '11 at 07:57

ThiefMaster

310,957
84
592
636

13

If you use PHP < 5 then using `return date('w', strtotime($date)) % 6 == 0` is a little shorter. – Jim Jan 16 '12 at 14:25
27

While that does the same thing, I'd say the explicit check is more obvious for someone reading the code. – ThiefMaster Jan 16 '12 at 15:21
2

Then again that's what comments are for. – Stephen Sabatini Sep 12 '15 at 17:41
16

Well, there are people who say that code should be readable without a lot of comments. Good code is readable - and not necessarily short. #CleanCode – anweibel Jan 15 '16 at 08:54
The less code there is the less there is to test and maintain. But if its unreadable its harder to test and maintain. Does there have to be a hard and fast rule about readability, or is it down to experience? – jpkrc Jan 17 '18 at 19:06
1

Beware of variable type. date() returns string. Comparing it to number can create issues. Good practice could be to add a (int) and switch string to number – Albert S. Jul 10 '20 at 11:30

score 57 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 22 '15 at 12:04

Another way is to use the DateTime class, this way you can also specify the timezone. Note: PHP 5.3 or higher.

// For the current date
function isTodayWeekend() {
    $currentDate = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone("Europe/Amsterdam"));
    return $currentDate->format('N') >= 6;
}

If you need to be able to check a certain date string, you can use DateTime::createFromFormat

function isWeekend($date) {
    $inputDate = DateTime::createFromFormat("d-m-Y", $date, new DateTimeZone("Europe/Amsterdam"));
    return $inputDate->format('N') >= 6;
}

The beauty of this way is that you can specify the timezone without changing the timezone globally in PHP, which might cause side-effects in other scripts (for ex. Wordpress).

Take your upvote, but the pedant in me is warning you when they decide to add an extra day of the week it might just be a weekday :) — Tricky, Jun 27 '17 at 14:14
"this way you can also specify the timezone". According to [this SO post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/470617/how-to-get-the-current-date-and-time-in-php/16814230), you can specify the timezone in alternate ways too. I've used your solution though — Wouter Vanherck, Sep 24 '18 at 14:12

harveyhans · Answer 3 · 2019-02-11T01:30:13.927

18

If you're using PHP 5.5 or PHP 7 above, you may want to use:

function isTodayWeekend() {
    return in_array(date("l"), ["Saturday", "Sunday"]);
}

and it will return "true" if today is weekend and "false" if not.

edited Feb 11 '19 at 01:30

answered Oct 17 '16 at 13:34

harveyhans

459
6
12

2

This will only work for English-language sites. It could be modified, but would get cumbersome for sites with multiple languages. – Bob Ray Apr 19 '20 at 20:17
1

@Bob Ray oh okay sorry i didn't notice that while I wrote it – harveyhans Jun 28 '20 at 17:47

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 26 '11 at 07:56

11

Here:

function isweekend($year, $month, $day)
{
    $time = mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $day, $year);
    $weekday = date('w', $time);
    return ($weekday == 0 || $weekday == 6);
}

answered Jan 26 '11 at 07:56

reko_t

55,302
10
87
77

Hoàng Long · Answer 5 · 2017-02-23T06:57:38.570

11

The working version of your code (from the errors pointed out by BoltClock):

<?php
$date = '2011-01-01';
$timestamp = strtotime($date);
$weekday= date("l", $timestamp );
$normalized_weekday = strtolower($weekday);
echo $normalized_weekday ;
if (($normalized_weekday == "saturday") || ($normalized_weekday == "sunday")) {
    echo "true";
} else {
    echo "false";
}

?>

The stray "{" is difficult to see, especially without a decent PHP editor (in my case). So I post the corrected version here.

edited Feb 23 '17 at 06:57

answered Jan 26 '11 at 08:06

Hoàng Long

10,746
20
75
124

You should also not return quoted true or false - or better still, just return the condition. – alex Jan 26 '11 at 08:07
@alex: I use "echo" to confirm the result, so.. that's it. Thanks for the advice. – Hoàng Long Jan 26 '11 at 08:13

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 20 '13 at 09:24

For guys like me, who aren't minimalistic, there is a PECL extension called "intl". I use it for idn conversion since it works way better than the "idn" extension and some other n1 classes like "IntlDateFormatter".

Well, what I want to say is, the "intl" extension has a class called "IntlCalendar" which can handle many international countries (e.g. in Saudi Arabia, sunday is not a weekend day). The IntlCalendar has a method IntlCalendar::isWeekend for that. Maybe you guys give it a shot, I like that "it works for almost every country" fact on these intl-classes.

EDIT: Not quite sure but since PHP 5.5.0, the intl extension is bundled with PHP (--enable-intl).

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 14 '18 at 12:15

2

This works for me and is reusable.

function isThisDayAWeekend($date) {

    $timestamp = strtotime($date);

    $weekday= date("l", $timestamp );

    if ($weekday =="Saturday" OR $weekday =="Sunday") { return true; } 
    else {return false; }

}

edited Jul 14 '18 at 12:15

Nihal

5,262
7
23
41

answered Jul 14 '18 at 10:42

Wynn

183
1
2

Will B. · Answer 8 · 2021-09-19T08:39:49.260

As opposed to testing the explicit day of the week string or number, you can also test using the relative date this weekday of the supplied date.

A direct comparison between the values is not possible without a workaround, as the use of weekday resets the time of the supplied date to 00:00:00.0000.

DateTimeInterface objects

$date->setTime(0, 0, 0) != $date->modify('this weekday');

`DateTimeInterface` Method

A simple method to implement to ensure the supplied date object is not changed.

function isWeekend(DateTimeInterface $date): bool
{
    if ($date instanceof DateTime) {
        $date = DateTimeImmutable::createFromMutable($date);
    }

    return $date->setTime(0,0,0) != $date->modify('this weekday');
}

isWeekend(new DateTimeImmutable('Sunday')); //true

`strtotime` method

With strtotime you can compare with the date('Yz') format. If the Yz value changes between the supplied date and this weekday, the supplied date is not a weekday.

function isWeekend(string $date): bool
{
    return date('Yz', strtotime($dateValue)) != date('Yz', strtotime($dateValue . ' this weekday'));
}

isWeekend('Sunday'); //true

Example

https://3v4l.org/TSAVi

$sunday = new DateTimeImmutable('Sunday');
foreach (new DatePeriod($sunday, new DateInterval('P1D'), 6) as $date) {
    echo $date->format('D') . ' is' . (isWeekend($date) ? '' : ' not') . ' a weekend';
}

Result

Sun is a weekend
Mon is not a weekend
Tue is not a weekend
Wed is not a weekend
Thu is not a weekend
Fri is not a weekend
Sat is a weekend

Checking if date is weekend PHP

8 Answers8

`DateTimeInterface` Method

`strtotime` method

Example

Linked

Related

Checking if date is weekend PHP

8 Answers8

DateTimeInterface Method

strtotime method

Example

Linked

Related

`DateTimeInterface` Method

`strtotime` method