How can I easily convert dates from UTC via PHP?

Question

I am storing dates in a MySQL database in datetime fields in UTC. I\'m using PHP, and I\'ve called date_timezone_set(\'UTC\') so that all calls to date() (without timestamp)

Answer 1

This worked for me and it's pretty clean

function convert_to_user_date($date, $userTimeZone = 'America/Los_Angeles', $serverTimeZone = 'UTC', $format = 'n/j/Y g:i A')
{
    $dateTime = new DateTime ($date, new DateTimeZone($serverTimeZone));
    $dateTime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($userTimeZone));
    return $dateTime->format($format);
}

function convert_to_server_date($date, $userTimeZone = 'America/Los_Angeles', $serverTimeZone = 'UTC', $format = 'n/j/Y g:i A')
{
    $dateTime = new DateTime ($date, new DateTimeZone($userTimeZone));
    $dateTime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($serverTimeZone));
    return $dateTime->format($format);
}