[ic] Difference in Dates

[Grant]

>>I need to have an "if" block that checks if the current date is more
>than 7
>>days later than a date in a database field.  I've looked at the time
>tag >and
>>I'm wondering what the best way to do this would be.  Any pointers
>would be
>>much appreciated.  Thanks!
>>
>>- Grant
>
>We do some similar date comparisons for a coupon add-on that we have
>implemented for a few of our clients.
>
>The way that we do it is to store the dates in the database in this
>format:
>YMD
>
>For instance, February 27, 2003 would be stored as:
>20030227
>
>You can get that value in IC by using:
>[convert-date fmt="%Y%m%d"][data-session time][/convert-date]
>
>Then, we run similar "if" statements as the one you mentioned above by
>assigning scratch variables to the two dates to be compared.
>
>For instance, you can set a scratch variable of today's date with
>something like:
>
>[tmp today_date][convert-date fmt="%Y%m%d"][data-session
>time][/convert-date][/tmp]
>
>You can then set another scratch variable with the date from the
>database in a number of ways. We use a query like this:
>
>[query sql="select start_date, end_date from coupons where coupon_code =
>'[scratch coupon_entered]'" list=1]
>
>[tmp coupon_date][sql-param start_date][/tmp]
>
>[/query]
>
>Finally, you can run an "if" statement comparing the two scratch
>variables created above with something like this:
>
>[if type="scratch" term="today_date" op=">" compare="[scratch
>coupon_date]"]
>foo
>[else]
>bar
>[/else]
>[/if]
>
>Hope this helps get you started.

Thanks a lot Michael.  Just what I needed to know.

- Grant