Comparing Time with the_time();

Question

I am trying to make a function that will check the time associated with a future event (cpt) with the current time, to see if the event has past. When I first collect the time it is in seconds and I can then convert it easily with date_i18n() to whatever, but I am not sure how to compare that results with the wordpress function the_time() to retrieve the current time.

Is there a way to have the_time() spit out the result in seconds, and I can then compare the two simply by ><= ?

or is there a way to compare two dates formatted in the same way? So formatting my date_i18n() result the same way as the_time() result and then comparing somehow

Answer 1

the_time() doesn't return the current time, it returns the time of the current post, also it echoes the result.

If you need the current time, simply use PHPs native time() function.