Linking to a different document after a certain date

Question

I hope there is a way to do this.
I have a PDF that I have added to a web page. It is a registration form to be filled out and sent in. The prices on the form reflects both early bird (until April 29) and regular prices.
I have created a second registration form (not yet loaded) which only reflects the regular prices for use after the early bird date has passed. After the early bird time has lapsed, I was going to load the new PDF and change the link so that the second registration form is linked.
I don't want to have them both available at the same time - less chance of someone coming back later and saying I didn't see the form with the early bird pricing.
Is there a way I could set them both up on my site so that the first form is linked to until the end of April 29, and on April 30 the link will automatically bring people to the second form?
THANKS
deb

Answer 1

The effort to do this by creating a dynamic page is just not worth it.
Anyone saying it's too much effort is either lazy or they simply don't know how to build dynamic pages in a simple manner. Furthermore, it's not just about you and your issue; it's about anyone that maybe looking for a solution to the question you have asked: how to display a link based on if a date has passed or not. Not an alternative suggestion, a solution.
It's very easy to create a dynamic link based off date. Of course bregent mentioned that it's not difficult, but there wasn't any mention of how easy it was (nor examples for that matter). Just lots of talk about whether it was worth it or not and an alternate, cumbersome suggestion. Bummer. Here's an example of the dynamic method with included explanation. You can decide whether it's worth the effort or not. I estimate it's less than 5 mins. of work, even for a beginner. Plus you might learn a thing or two about dynamic scripting in the process, which is exciting.
Change the filename of register.html to register.php then use the following code to display link depending on date.
<?php if (date("Y-m-d") < "2011-03-15") { ?>
today is before March 15, 2011 put link to early bird pdf here.
<?php } else { ?>
today is on or after March 15, 2011 put link to regular rate pdf here.
<?php } ?>
You can use 301 redirect with .htaccess on apache server to redirect register.html to register.php if there's many links already established for register.html
You'd need two different pdf files to accomplish your task: ealry_bird.pdf to use before your set date and regular_rate.pdf to use for after your set date.
Then setup a function to remove the early_bird.pdf file from the server after a certain date. It's as easy as defining the variable and applying the function to the area that is congruent with the argument presented. In this case the argument is whether the date has passed or not. If it has then define the variable as the filename then apply the function that deletes the variable (filename) from the server as shown in the example below:
<?php if (date("Y-m-d") < "2011-03-15") { ?>
today is before March 15, 2011 <a href="/images/early_bird.pdf">link to early bird pdf here</a>.
<?php } else {
// declare variable for the early bird pdf file
$pdffile = "/images/early_bird.pdf";
// remove the early bird pdf file from the server
// by using unlink function on the set variable
unlink($pdffile); ?>
today is on or after March 15, 2011 <a href="/images/regular_rate.pdf">link to regular rate pdf here</a>.
<?php } ?>