title: How to determine if a carbon instance is equal to 0000-00-00 00:00:00
body: <p>My users have a date field which is set to 0000-00-00 00:00:00 by default. I want to be able to determine if a user has their field set to this date. </p>
  
  <p>However, when I die and dump the field I get something like this:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Carbon {#290 ▼   +"date": "-0001-11-30 00:00:00.000000"</p>
    
    <p>+"timezone_type": A number</p>
    
    <p>+"timezone": My timezone }</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I have tried the following</p>
  
  <pre><code>if ($user-&gt;date == null)
  
  if ($user-&gt;date == 00:00:00.000000)
  
  if (!$user-&gt;date)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm a bit of a loss as to how I will determine that the date is zero</p>