How to format an UTC date to use the Z (Zulu) zone designator in php?

Question

I need to display and handle UTC dates in the following format:

2013-06-28T22:15:00Z

As this format is part of the ISO8601 stand

Answer 1

To do this with the object-oriented style date object you need to first set the timezone to UTC, and then output the date:

function dateTo8601Zulu(\DateTimeInterface $date):string {
  return $date
    ->setTimezone(new \DateTimeZone('UTC'))
    ->format('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z');
}