rotating header images based on time of day?

Checking the hour is simple, checking the timezone is not very reliable…

You could use this to check the hour, how you handle the timezone is up to you…

You need to take in consideration how to handle timezone, if you check based on IP there’s a number of unreliable factors such as being behind a proxy.

[PHP]

$thehour = date('H');

switch($thehour)
{
  case '00':echo 'The hour equals 00';break;
  case '01':echo 'The hour equals 01';break;
  case '02':echo 'The hour equals 02';break;
  case '03':echo 'The hour equals 03';break;
  case '04':echo 'The hour equals 04';break;
  case '05':echo 'The hour equals 05';break;
  case '06':echo 'The hour equals 06';break;
  case '07':echo 'The hour equals 07';break;
  case '08':echo 'The hour equals 08';break;
  case '09':echo 'The hour equals 09';break;
  case '10':echo 'The hour equals 10';break;
  case '11':echo 'The hour equals 11';break;
  case '12':echo 'The hour equals 12';break;
  case '13':echo 'The hour equals 13';break;
  case '14':echo 'The hour equals 14';break;
  case '15':echo 'The hour equals 15';break;
  case '16':echo 'The hour equals 16';break;
  case '17':echo 'The hour equals 17';break;
  case '18':echo 'The hour equals 18';break;
  case '19':echo 'The hour equals 19';break;
  case '20':echo 'The hour equals 20';break;
  case '21':echo 'The hour equals 21';break;
  case '22':echo 'The hour equals 22';break;
  case '23':echo 'The hour equals 23';break;

}

Of course you don’t have to use echoes, you can set a variable if you prefer then display the value of the variable after the switch… or any number of other things…

Another example..

[PHP]

$thehour = date('H');

switch($thehour) {
case '00': $myvar = 'something';break;
case '01': $myvar = 'something else';break;
case '02': $myvar = 'something else again';break; // and so on up to 23 as previous example, for each hour of the day...
}

echo '<div class="somediv">'.$myvar.'</div>';

If the hour was 01 (as in 1am) you’d get <div class="somediv">something else</div>

Hope that helps… 🙂

what if I wanted to do this based on day and not time of day?

that gets me close but I’m still doing something wrong. I am running at last php5 btw.
Actually what I’m trying to do is query the content of a specific post into my side bar each day using this:

<?php query_posts(‘p=47’); if(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endif; ?>

However using your function I can’t get it to display anythign but an error. I should add I know this is my fault and not the above function.
Thoughts?

Or to offer an alternative, that doesn’t require PHP5 date(‘N’)…

<?php
$thisday = date('l');
if(isset($thisday)) {
  switch($thisday) {
    case 'Monday':
    case 'Tuesday':
    case 'Wednesday':
    case 'Thursday':
    case 'Friday':
    case 'Saturday':
    case 'Sunday':
      $dayvar = $thisday;
    break;
    default:
      $dayvar = 'Invalid day';
    break;
  }
}
// Create a new loop query
$newquery = new WP_Query('p=162');
// If there are results
if($newquery->have_posts()) {

// While there are results
while($newquery->have_posts()) :
	$newquery-> the_post();
?>
	<h2><?php echo $dayvar; ?></h2>
	<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
	<br /> at <?php the_time('g:ia') ?> on <?php the_time('M, jS') ?>

<?php
// End while loop
endwhile;
// Reset query after the loop
wp_reset_query();
}
?>

date('l') // That’s a lowercase L … returns the day as the actual name…

You may find the above a nicer solution (easier to read and less lines of code).

To explain a little….

switch($variable) { }

Is basically like having a series of IF’s and ELSE’s … the difference is you can specifically set which values do what, and default anything else… (so you don’t have to write IF/ELSE for every possible value).

See how you get on… 😉

Ok, so where… p=X (X is a number)…

That corresponds to 1 of 7 posts….

You want to switch the query depending on the day.

Example:
It’s monday so grab post with the ID of 5..
It’s tuesday grab the post with an ID of 19…

etc..

Is that correct?…

Ok then, so give this a shot…

<?php
$thisday = date('l');
if(isset($thisday)) {
	switch($thisday) {
		case 'Monday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=1';
		break;
		case 'Tuesday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=2';
		break;
		case 'Wednesday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=3';
		break;
		case 'Thursday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=4';
		break;
		case 'Friday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=5';
		break;
		case 'Saturday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=6';
		break;
		case 'Sunday':
			$post_to_query = 'p=7';
		break;
		default:
			// If the day is set but doesn't match the cases above
			echo 'Something went wrong, day is not valid';
			$errorday = strip_tags($thisday);
			echo '<pre>'.$errorday.'</pre>';
			$post_to_query = '';
		break;
	}
} else {
	// If the day is not set, which it should be.
	echo 'Something went wrong, day is not valid (2) ';
	$errorday = strip_tags($thisday);
	echo '<pre>'.$errorday.'</pre>';
	$post_to_query = '';
}

// Create a new loop query
$newquery = new WP_Query($post_to_query);

// If there are results
if($newquery->have_posts()) {

	// While there are results (the loop)
	while($newquery->have_posts()) : $newquery-> the_post(); ?>

		<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
		 at <?php the_time('g:ia') ?> on <?php the_time('M, jS') ?>

	<?php
	// End while loop
	endwhile;

	// Reset query after the loop
	wp_reset_query();
}
else {
	echo 'Query for '.$post_to_query.' failed to find a valid post.';
}
?>

The messages should never appear (“Something went wrong, day is not valid”), since the day should always be equal to Monday through to Sunday, i put those messages in just incase.

Of course update the p=1, p=2 parts, to match the ID’s of the posts..

Hope that helps… 🙂

EDIT: Updated it a little more, so if something goes wrong it should be quite obvious by whats output to the screen.

actually I may have got it… If I tell wordpress my week starts on Sunday will that throw things off?

t31os_ you’re a good man.