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phpmysqltimezonetimestamp
John
John

Reputation: 10156

PHP/MySQL timestamp and timezones

If I grab the current timestamp using the NOW() function in MySQL can I grab that field via php and give that time in different time zones? Basically converting current time in the current timezone to another timezone?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 11105

Answers (2)

spoulson
spoulson

Reputation: 21601

MySQL's timezone handling is much more sophisticated than PHP's. It handles simple timezone (EST, PST, etc) and what i will call 'regional timezones' (America/Eastern). Using regional zones uses proper conversion including daylight savings time, even when DST rules have changed over the years.

What I've done is store all my datetimes as UTC using MySQL function UTC_TIMESTAMP(). Then, in queries, I use MySQL function CONVERT_TZ() to my target timezone. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-functions.html

Note: you may need to update your timezone tables. http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/timezones.html

Upvotes: 3

moinudin
moinudin

Reputation: 138497

You can use the DateTimeZone class:

$gmt = new DateTimeZone("GMT");
$datetimeInGMT = new DateTime($now, $gmt);

It also takes locations in the form continent/city, e.g. Europe/London.

If your datetime is non-UTC, you can use setTimezone:

$datetimeInGMT = new DateTime($now, new DateTimeZone("America/New_York"));
$datetimeInGMT->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone("GMT"));

Upvotes: 5

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