Timezones in php

Question

I need some advice... obviously..

I have a multi-timezone php site (MySQL) and have been
offered lots of ways to approach this.

My current solution is to use a putenv() function in the
header to change the timezone environment.

i.e. putenv ("TZ=".$_SESSION['usertimezone']);

This works great when using echo to adjust a timestamp (e.g.
Time())
using echo date("D, d-m-Y H:i:s",$whatevertimestamp);

BUT... it gets more complex when entering dates into a
database and returning them from it in the correct timezone.

I am sort of aware of the date_default_timezone_set()
function but am not clear what the differences are.

I have also heard about the new DateTime($timefield, new
DateTimeZone($usertimezone)); function which could convert a
date/time field into a timestamp and associate a timezone.

Am I even going in the right direction??????

Any help on this would be very appreciated.

RichardODreamweaver · Accepted Answer

OK - finally solved it and it was so simple...

Provided the putenv("TZ"=..... is defined, you can use

strtotime, which uses the dat/time string and converts it using the default system timezone (which has been defined). The converted UTC epoch value can then be stored.

When another user logs in and his/her timezone is different, you can take the UTC epoch value from the database and parse it using a simple date() function.

This converts the UTC date into a local date!!!

So simple when you know how.....

RichardODreamweaver · Answer

Thanks zerofI have been through these in detail but, being new to thesubject, it was quite complex!The Laughingmeme site was the most useful and I have got asfar as being able to create a string incorporating the timezonedifference (formatted in DATE_RFC3339 format)I can now presumably store this value into a VARCHAR tablefield.My problem now is echoing in the different timezone.e.g.If I use "2008-09-02 21:10:15" as entered by the datetimepicker, I can usenew DateTime($_POST['timefield'], new DateTimeZone(GB));which will return2008-09-02T21:10:15+01:00Great - insert or update it!My issue now is when user 2 in UTC timezone accesses thisvalue, it didn't do what I wanted which was to account for the"+01:00" value.Do I have to use a sttotime function here or another objectto calculate the new value?David, Micha, anyone - this is really annoying me now - I'vebeen on this subject for over a week and not really got muchfurther!

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