Advanced conditional & Low Variable parse order

Question

I need to use an advanced conditional with Low Variables and am having trouble getting it to work. I believe it's a parse order thing but am not sure how to get around it.

I am checking the current date/time against 2 Low Variables to see if the current date/time is in between 2 variables.

{if '{current_time format="%F %d - %g:%i %a"}' >= '{date_start}' AND '{current_time format="%F %d - %g:%i %a"}' <= '{date_end}'}
Show some content
{/if}

date_start & date_end are the Low Variables & I have both of them set to parse early.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This conditional will never work because the format you chose. "%F %d - %g:%i %a" isn't a number and just numbers can use >, >=, < and <=.

You need to format all variables used in this conditionals as seconds since Epoch.

{if {current_time format="%U"} >= {date_start} AND {current_time format="%U"} <= {date_end} }
  Show some content
{/if}

Remember that your Low Variables need to be formated this way too! If you can't, there are some addons which can change the format of a date. Low has one.

{exp:low_nice_date date="{date_start}" format="%U"}

So:

{if {current_time format="%U"} >= {exp:low_nice_date date="{date_start}" format="%U"} AND {current_time format="%U"} <= {exp:low_nice_date date="{date_end}" format="%U"} }
  Show some content
{/if}