How to Convert Between Time Zones in PHP Using the Datetime Class

How to convert between time zones in PHP using the DateTime class?

What you're looking for is this:

$triggerOn = '04/01/2013 03:08 PM';
$user_tz = 'America/Los_Angeles';

echo $triggerOn; // echoes 04/01/2013 03:08 PM

$schedule_date = new DateTime($triggerOn, new DateTimeZone($user_tz) );
$schedule_date->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
$triggerOn =  $schedule_date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

echo $triggerOn; // echoes 2013-04-01 22:08:00

DateTime input convert between timezones in PHP

Perhaps this will work

$test = new DateTime($_POST['fromDate'], new DateTimeZone('America/Los_Angeles'));
$test->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Europe/Paris'));
echo $test->format('Y-m-d\TH:i:s');

At least that is how it is done in php manual here: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/datetime.settimezone.php

# How to use the DateTime class (Dealing with Conversions, Formatting, Diffs, and Time zones)

Most of the below information can be gotten from various parts of PHP's documentation of the DateTime class. However, this answer is formatted in a way that should answer most people's questions regarding the DateTime class, and should apply to most of its use cases.

If you are trying to do something more advanced with Dates/Times such as creating a DateTime wrapper, using immutable DateTime instances, or something else that's specific to your applications needs I highly suggest you checkout the full Date and Time documentation.

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1. How do I convert a string to a modifiable date/time?

One of the hardest things to do in programming is to try and make end-user input usable. However, when it comes to dates and times, the DateTime class makes this practically child's play.

How

DateTime's constructor uses a powerful parser that accepts most widely known formats including relative formats.

$datetime = new DateTime($datetime_string);

From there you can use any of the following methods to modify the time:

• $datetime->modify() - Alters the timestamp (works great with relative formats!)
• $datetime->add() - Adds an amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds to a DateTime object
• $datetime->sub() - Subtracts an amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds from a DateTime object
• $datetime->setDate() - Sets the date
• $datetime->setISODate() - Sets the ISO date
• $datetime->setTime() - Sets the time
• $datetime->setTimestamp() - Sets the date and time based on an Unix timestamp (great for dealing with absolute times across time zones!)

To see the full list of formats that DateTime::__construct() supports check out: Supported Date and Time Formats.

Example - Interpreting End-User Input

Lets say you have form that allows users to say what day they want to make an appointment, but this input is not a date picker with a forced format, but is instead a plain text input.

A typical end-user will put something like these in that input and a typical programmer will respond in the following ways when asked to support it:

• 12/31/2000 - "OK"
• 2000-12-31 - "Sure"
• Today - "Um, I guess we could support that?"
• Tomorrow - "I guess we should support that too."
• wednesday next week - "No."

After a while you either force a specific format (which you should always do anyway) or weep at your poor form design. However, DateTime allows all of these as valid inputs and interprets them flawlessly.

// 2000-12-31 00:00:00.000000
new DateTime('12/31/2000');

// 2000-12-31 00:00:00.000000
new DateTime('2000-12-31');

// 2000-12-31 00:00:00.000000
new DateTime('Today');

// 2001-01-01 00:00:00.000000
new DateTime('Tomorrow');

// 2001-01-03 00:00:00.000000
new DateTime('wednesday next week');

However, like most things the DateTime class is not perfect, and doesn't support every format. Which is why you should always use try ... catch blocks with DateTime and confirm with your end-user that the date you interpreted is what the end-user desired. One great example is European date formats:

try {
    new DateTime('31/12/2000');
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();
}

Output:

DateTime::__construct(): Failed to parse time string (31/12/2000) at position 0 (3): Unexpected character

Example - Modifying A Date/Time

You can adjust any date/time easily with the $datetime->modify() method:

$datetime = new DateTime('2001-01-01');

// 2001-01-04 00:00:00.000000
$datetime->modify('+3 days');

// 2001-02-04 00:00:00.000000
$datetime->modify('+1 month');

// 2001-02-03 23:59:00.000000
$datetime->modify('-60 seconds');

// 2001-02-02 00:00:00.000000
$datetime->modify('yesterday');

// 2001-02-02 18:00:00.000000
$datetime->modify('6pm');

The $datetime->modify() method is the easiest way to modify any instance of DateTime.

However, due to parsing it is somewhat inefficient. If you are modifying 1000's of dates/times and you need better performance, then use add(), sub(), setDate(), setISODate(), setTime(), and setTimestamp() instead of modify().

$datetime = new DateTime('2001-01-01');

// 2001-06-01 00:00:00.000000
$datetime->setDate(2001, 6, 1);

// 2001-06-01 06:30:00.000000
$datetime->setTime(6, 30, 0);

// No sane person should ever do the below when they could just add 10,000
// seconds, but it's a good way to test how fast your system will handle
// updating DateTime.
$timestamp = $datetime->getTimestamp();
foreach (range(1, 10000) as $i) {
    $timestamp++;
    $datetime->setTimestamp($timestamp);
}
// 2001-06-01 09:16:40.000000

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2. How do I format a date/time string?

It's common that you need to take 1 date/time string and format it as another date/time string, or even just take and existing date/time and update it. The DateTime class makes this simple as well.

How

DateTime has the method format() which returns the date/time as a formatted string.

$datetime = new DateTime;
$format   = 'Y-m-d H:i:s';
echo $datetime->format($format);

We are only going to use a small subset of the formatting options available in these examples, so I highly encourage you to checkout the documentation on formatting dates/times as well as the predefined DateTime constants.

Notice: Be aware that if you attempt to escape a character that could be PHP string escape character you may get unexpected results.

Incorrect Result

// output: Da   e 2000-12-31
echo $datetime->format("\D\a\t\e\: Y-m-d").PHP_EOL;

Correct Result

// output: Date 2000-12-31
echo $datetime->format("\D\a\\t\e\: Y-m-d").PHP_EOL;

// output: Date 2000-12-31
echo $datetime->format('\D\a\t\e\: Y-m-d').PHP_EOL;

Examples

These are some common formats that you may need:

SQL Dates/Times

// output: 2000-12-31
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d').PHP_EOL;

// output: 23:59:59
echo $datetime->format('H:i:s').PHP_EOL;

// output: 2000-12-31 23:59:59
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s').PHP_EOL;

End-User Readable Dates/Times

// output: 12/31/2000
echo $datetime->format('n/j/Y').PHP_EOL;

// output: 11:59pm
echo $datetime->format('g:ia').PHP_EOL;

// output: 12/31/2000 at 11:59pm
echo $datetime->format('n/j/Y \a\t g:ia').PHP_EOL;

// output: Sunday the 31st of December 2000 at 11:59:59 PM
echo $datetime->format('l \t\h\e jS \o\f F Y \a\t g:i:s A').PHP_EOL;

Dates/Times With Time zones

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
$datetime = new DateTime('2000-12-31 23:59:59');

// output: 2000-12-31 23:59:59 America/New_York
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s e').PHP_EOL;

// output: 2000-12-31 23:59:59 EST
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s T').PHP_EOL;

// output: 2000-12-31 23:59:59 -0500
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s O').PHP_EOL;

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3. How do I get the difference between 2 times?

It is common to need to know the difference in time between 2 dates/times. With DateTime there are actually 3 different ways to achieve this, and which one you will want to use will depend on your needs.

How (with Examples)

Scenario 1: You only need to know if $datetime1 is greater than, less than, or equal to $datetime2

In this case, you can simply directly compare the instances of DateTime.

$datetime1 = new DateTime;
sleep(1);
$datetime2 = new DateTime;

var_dump($datetime1 > $datetime2); // FALSE
var_dump($datetime1 < $datetime2); // TRUE
var_dump($datetime1 == $datetime2); // FALSE

Scenario 2: You need the difference between $datetime1 and $datetime2 expressed as broken-down years/months/days/etc.

This will work for most cases, however the DateInterval instance you get back from $datetime->diff() has its own "gotchas" and may not work for your specific use case.

$datetime1 = new DateTime('2000-01-01 00:00:00.000000');
$datetime2 = new DateTime('2001-02-03 04:05:06.789012');
$diff      = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);

// output: 1 Years, 1 Months, 2 Days, 4 Hours, 5 Minutes, 6 Seconds
echo $diff->format('%y Years, %m Months, %d Days, %h Hours, %i Minutes, %s Seconds');

Scenario 3: You need the difference between $datetime1 and $datetime2 expressed in another way.

This will work in any context at the cost of a little extra code.

$interval   = 60 * 60 * 24; // 1 day in seconds
$datetime1  = new DateTime('2000-01-01');
$datetime2  = new DateTime;
$diff       = $datetime2->getTimestamp() - $datetime1->getTimestamp();

// output: It has been 6956 days since 2000-01-01!
printf('It has been %s days since %s!', floor($diff / $interval), $datetime1->format('Y-m-d'));

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4. How do I account for time zones?

When it comes to dealing with time in programming, by far the worst part is dealing with time zones. Fortunately, this is something else that the DateTime class handles gracefully.

How

DateTime's constructor allows you to specify the source time zone in either the date/time string or as the 2nd Argument. After that, just set a new timezone with $datetime->setTimezone() and DateTime will take care of the rest.

// These 2 lines are functionally identical
$datetime = new DateTime('2001-01-01 00:00:00', new DateTimeZone('UTC')); // recommended, may be faster
$datetime = new DateTime('2001-01-01 00:00:00 UTC');

$datetime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('EST'));

I recommend checking out the full list of PHP's supported time zones as well as the docs on the DateTimeZone class.

Example

Lets say you want to show your end-users the time your customer support line opens in their time zone. With DateTime the code would look something like this:

$support_opens      = new DateTime('08:00:00', new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));
$customer_timezones = array('America/New_York', 'America/Chicago', 'America/Denver', 'America/Phoenix', 'America/Los_Angeles', 'America/Anchorage', 'America/Adak', 'Pacific/Honolulu');

echo "Today we open at the following times:".PHP_EOL;
foreach ($customer_timezones as $timezone) {
    $support_opens->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($timezone));
    echo '* '.$support_opens->format('g:ia \f\o\r \t\h\e e').' time zone'.PHP_EOL;
}

Output:

Today we open at the following times:
* 8:00am for the America/New_York time zone
* 7:00am for the America/Chicago time zone
* 6:00am for the America/Denver time zone
* 6:00am for the America/Phoenix time zone
* 5:00am for the America/Los_Angeles time zone
* 4:00am for the America/Anchorage time zone
* 3:00am for the America/Adak time zone
* 3:00am for the Pacific/Honolulu time zone

Notice: If you supply a time zone in both the date/time string and as the second argument, the argument time zone will be ignored.

$datetime = new DateTime('2001-01-01 00:00:00 EST', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

// output: 2001-01-01 00:00:00 EST
echo $datetime1->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

Convert time and date from one time zone to another in PHP

<?php
$date = new DateTime('2000-01-01', new DateTimeZone('Pacific/Nauru'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";

$date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Pacific/Chatham'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";
?>

The above examples will output:

2000-01-01 00:00:00+12:00
2000-01-01 01:45:00+13:45

found on DateTime Manual on php.net

EDIT:
Like Pekka said: The DateTime class exists from 5.2 on and there you first have to find out which of the methods are realy implemented and which one only exist from 5.3 on.

Converting Time with timezone PHP

You can try this code, this will work for you and you can set the timezone as per your need.

// Input  : '2021-01-20T19:03:52.355+0300';
// Output : '20-01-2021 23.03.52,355000 +07:00';

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');
$datetime = new DateTime('2021-01-20T19:03:52.355+0300');

// timezone to convert.
$la_time = new DateTimeZone('Asia/Krasnoyarsk');
$datetime->setTimezone($la_time);
echo $datetime->format('d-m-Y H.i.s,u P');

Output:

20-01-2021 23.03.52,355000 +07:00

Timezone conversion in php

You can use the datetime object or their function aliases for this:

Example (abridged from PHP Manual)

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

$datetime = new DateTime('2008-08-03 12:35:23');
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
$la_time = new DateTimeZone('America/Los_Angeles');
$datetime->setTimezone($la_time);
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

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Edit regarding comments

but i cannt use this method because i need to show date in different time zones as the user login from different locations

That's not a problem. When a user logs in, you determine his timezone and set it to your DateTime object just like shown. I'm using a similar approach in one of my projects and it works like a charm.

in the database i need to get the dates in any single timezone, then only it can be processed properly

You store the time either as a timestamp or a datetime in one timezone. When you query a DateTime field, you either convert the time in a DateTime object to this timezone or - if your db supports it - query with the selected timezone.

How to convert time from one timezone to another in PHP

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

$datetime = new DateTime('2008-08-03 12:35:23');
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
$la_time = new DateTimeZone('America/Los_Angeles');
$datetime->setTimezone($la_time);
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

PHP to output a local timezone adjusted DateTime

You can create the DateTime instance, specifying that it is UTC. Then change its timezone to that of the user with setTimeZone().

$datetime = new DateTime("2011-06-07 12:34:56", new DateTimeZone("UTC"));
$datetime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone("Europe/Berlin"));
echo $datetime->format(DateTime::RSS);

Retrieve date and convert it to specific time zone according to user time zone

$date = new DateTime($result->s_start, new DateTimeZone($result->s_timezone));
$date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Africa/Cairo'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') ;

Resources

• DateTime class
• DateTimeZone class

Edit A function in the controller to convert timezones.

public function _convert_time($result){
    $date = new DateTime($result->s_start, new  DateTimeZone($result->s_timezone));
    $date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Africa/Cairo'));
    return $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') ;
}

Now you can echo the result

foreach($results as $result){
    echo $this->_convert_time($result);
}

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