[php] PHP date time greater than today

please help what's wrong with my code? It always returns that today's date is greater than '01/02/2016' wherein 2016 is greater than in 2015.

<?php
$date_now = date("m/d/Y");

$date = date_create("01/02/2016");
$date_convert = date_format($date, "m/d/Y");

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

P.S: 01/02/2016 is coming from the database.

This question is related to php date

The answer is


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

Or

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

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

Demo