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URGENT! Timezone Conversion

Posted on 2004-08-31

2 solutions

Medium Priority

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Last Modified: 2009-01-09

As the title goes, how do you, for example, convert a timestamp to a specific timezone?

thanks in advance,
gam3r_3xtr3m3

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Question by:gam3r_3xtr3m3

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15 Comments

LVL 27

Accepted Solution

by:Diablo84

Diablo84 earned 1000 total points

ID: 119488862004-08-31

you could use strtotime, example

<?php
$time = strtotime("+ 1 hour"); //the timestamp
echo date("H:i:s",$time);
?>

if you wanted it to be dynamic (eg. selecting the time difference via a drop down) you could do

<?php
$offset = $_POST['drop_down_name'];
$time = strtotime("+ $offset hours");
echo date("H:i:s",$time);
?>

note the offset would be the offset from your servers time zone

LVL 6

Assisted Solution

by:merwetta1

merwetta1 earned 1000 total points

ID: 119491142004-08-31

PHP has a timezone environment variable that you can modify with the putenv() function. Then any calls to the date function will give time in that timezone.

<?
echo "Original Time: ". date("h:i:s")."\n";
putenv("TZ=America/Los_Angeles");
echo "New Time: ". date("h:i:s")."\n";
?>

You just need to replace the "America/Los_Angeles" string with whatever timezone you want from the following list (timezone strings are the 3rd item in each row): http://www.theprojects.org/dev/zone.txt

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:iceboxman

ID: 119491642004-08-31

I like to use this code:

$timezone = -8;

$now_arr = getdate();
$now = mktime($now_arr['hours'] + $timezone, $now_arr['minutes'], $now_arr['seconds'], $now_arr['mon'], $now_arr['mday'], $now_arr['year']);

LVL 6

Expert Comment

by:merwetta1

ID: 119492412004-08-31

OK, I'm going to give you a complete solution that will tell you the date and time in any timezone and adjust it for daylight savings:

<html>
<body>
<?

if ($_POST['offset'])
{
      ## use gmdate to get GMT offset by correct amount for chosen timezone
      ## date("I") is used to adjust for daylight savings (it returns 1 for daylight savings, 0 for not)
      echo "The date and time in that timezone is ".
gmdate("m/j/Y H:i:s", time() + 3600*($_POST['offset']+date("I")));
} else
{
?>
      <form action="<? echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
      Tell me the time for: <select name="offset">
       <option value="-12">(GMT -12:00) Eniwetok, Kwajelein
       <option value="-11">(GMT -11:00) Midway Island, Samoa
       <option value="-10">(GMT -10:00) Hawaii (Lucky You!!)
       <option value="-9">(GMT -09:00) Alaska (Brrr..Cold)
       <option value="-8">(GMT -08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada), Tijuana
       <option value="-7">(GMT -07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)
       <option value="-6">(GMT -06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)
       <option value="-5">(GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
       <option value="-4">(GMT -04:00) Atlantic Time (Canada Only)
       <option value="-3">(GMT -03:00) Brasilia, Buenos Aries
       <option value="-2">(GMT -02:00) Mid Atlantic (See land yet?)
       <option value="-1">(GMT -01:00) Azores, Carpe Verdes Island
       <option value="0" selected>(GMT 00:00) Greenwich Mean Time: Dublin, London
       <option value="+1">(GMT +01:00) Belgrade, Prague, Brussels, Paris
       <option value="+2">(GMT +02:00) Athens, Istanbul, Cairo, Israel
       <option value="+3">(GMT +03:00) Moscow, St Petersburg, Kuwait
       <option value="+4">(GMT +04:00) Baku, Tblisi
       <option value="+5">(GMT +05:00) Ekaterinburg, Islamabad, Karachi
       <option value="+6">(GMT +06:00) Almaty, Colombo, Dhaka
       <option value="+7">(GMT +07:00) Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta
       <option value="+8">(GMT +08:00) Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei
       <option value="+9">(GMT +09:00) Yakutsk (wherever the hell that is)
       <option value="+10">(GMT +10:00) Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney
       <option value="+11">(GMT +11:00) Magadan, Solomon Islands
       <option value="+12">(GMT +12:00) Auckland, Wellington, Fiji
      </select>
      <input type="submit" name="submit">
      </form>
<?
}
?>
</body>
</html>

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:iceboxman

ID: 119495732004-08-31

You didn't include places like Arizona where DST is not observed. If you do a complex solution like that, you will need to research which locations observe DST. Also, you never quite gave it in a timestamp.

LVL 6

Expert Comment

by:merwetta1

ID: 119501392004-09-01

sheesh, iceboxman! Your code doesn't give a timestamp, either. 8-)

Here is a revised solution that addresses iceboxman's criticisms:

<html>
<body>
<?

if ($_POST['offset'])
{
      ## use gmdate to get GMT offset by correct amount for chosen timezone
      ## date("I") is used to adjust for daylight savings (it returns 1 for daylight savings, 0 for not)
      if ($_POST['dst'] == 1) $dst_offset = date('I');
      else $dst_offset = 0;
      echo "The date and time in that timezone is ".
            gmdate('m/j/Y H:i:s', time() + 3600*($_POST['offset'] + $dst_offset));
      echo "<br>and the Unix timestamp is ".
            gmdate('U', time() + 3600*($_POST['offset'] + $dst_offset));
      echo "<br>and the SQL timestamp is ".
            gmdate('YmdHis', time() + 3600*($_POST['offset'] + $dst_offset));
} else
{
?>
      <form action="<? echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
      Tell me the time for: <select name="offset">
      <option value="-12">(GMT -12:00) Eniwetok, Kwajelein
      <option value="-11">(GMT -11:00) Midway Island, Samoa
      <option value="-10">(GMT -10:00) Hawaii (Lucky You!!)
      <option value="-9">(GMT -09:00) Alaska (Brrr..Cold)
      <option value="-8">(GMT -08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada), Tijuana
      <option value="-7">(GMT -07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)
      <option value="-6">(GMT -06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)
      <option value="-5">(GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
      <option value="-4">(GMT -04:00) Atlantic Time (Canada Only)
      <option value="-3">(GMT -03:00) Brasilia, Buenos Aries
      <option value="-2">(GMT -02:00) Mid Atlantic (See land yet?)
      <option value="-1">(GMT -01:00) Azores, Carpe Verdes Island
      <option value="0" selected>(GMT 00:00) Greenwich Mean Time: Dublin, London
      <option value="+1">(GMT +01:00) Belgrade, Prague, Brussels, Paris
      <option value="+2">(GMT +02:00) Athens, Istanbul, Cairo, Israel
      <option value="+3">(GMT +03:00) Moscow, St Petersburg, Kuwait
      <option value="+4">(GMT +04:00) Baku, Tblisi
      <option value="+5">(GMT +05:00) Ekaterinburg, Islamabad, Karachi
      <option value="+6">(GMT +06:00) Almaty, Colombo, Dhaka
      <option value="+7">(GMT +07:00) Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta
      <option value="+8">(GMT +08:00) Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei
      <option value="+9">(GMT +09:00) Yakutsk (wherever the hell that is)
      <option value="+10">(GMT +10:00) Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney
      <option value="+11">(GMT +11:00) Magadan, Solomon Islands
      <option value="+12">(GMT +12:00) Auckland, Wellington, Fiji
    </select><br>
      <input type="checkbox" name="dst" value="1"> Check here to adjust for Daylight Savings<br>
      <input type="submit" name="submit">
      </form>
<?
}
?>
</body>
</html>

LVL 27

Expert Comment

by:Diablo84

ID: 119511882004-09-01

All seem over complicated comparred to strtotime.

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:Oliver_Dornauf

ID: 119525252004-09-01

Yes Diabolo84 - is is more comlicated and I also it wasn´t the question.

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:iceboxman

ID: 119540002004-09-01

Much better code merwetta. :)

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:Skonen

ID: 119609722004-09-02

Heh. Being that everybody is posting just about every solution under the sun. Assuming the timestamp is based on Greenwich Mean Time, you could use something like:

function get_timezone ($timestamp, $offset){
return $timestamp+(3600*(int)$offset);
}

It is simple, robust, and much more efficient then strtotime(). An example of usage would be:

$newtime = get_timezone($oldtime, -8);
gmdate("m/d/Y H:i:s", $newtime);

This example can of course be refined to:

gmdate("m/d/Y H:i:s", get_timezone($oldtime, -8));

Hope this helps!
Stuart Konen

LVL 4

Expert Comment

by:iceboxman

ID: 119771232004-09-03

You know, I like Skonen's code better than mine. I'm changing mine to his, but with a little modification:

function get_timezone ($timestamp, $offset, $is_dst){
return $timestamp+(3600*(int)($offset + $is_dst));
}

$is_dst should be 0 or 1.

LVL 27

Expert Comment

by:Diablo84

ID: 125265392004-11-08

All that is needed for timezone conversion is strtotime. merwetta1's post is useful in the sense that it gives the time offsets for other zone so i propose split:

Diablo84 & merwetta1

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