title: How can I work out if a date is on or before today?
body: <p>My web application consists of library type system where books have due dates.</p>
  
  <p>I have the current date displayed on my page, simply by using this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');
  
  $date = date;
  print $date("d/m/Y");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have set 'date' as a variable because I'm not sure if it makes a difference when I use it in the IF statement you're about see, on my library books page.</p>
  
  <p>On this page, I am simply outputting the due dates of the books, many have dates which have not yet reached todays date, and others which have dates greater than todays date.
  Basically, all I want is the due date to appear bold (or strong), if it has passed todays date (the system displayed date). This is what I have and thought would work:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?
  if ($duedate &lt; $date) {
    echo '&lt;td&gt;&lt;strong&gt;';
  } else {
    echo '&lt;td&gt;';
  } ?&gt;
  
  &lt;?php echo $date('d/m/Y', $timestamp);?&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have declared $timestamp as a var which converts the date of default MySQL format to a UK version. Can anyone help me out? I thought this would've been very straight forward!</p>