Timezone conversion in php

Question

Can anyone suggest an easy method to convert date and time to different timezones in php?

Answer 1

None of these answers worked for me (I skipped trying code that was overly bulky in size). I also think it's weird to change the default timezone just for a single conversion.

Here is my solution:

function changeTimeZone($dateString, $timeZoneSource = null, $timeZoneTarget = null)
{
  if (empty($timeZoneSource)) {
    $timeZoneSource = date_default_timezone_get();
  }
  if (empty($timeZoneTarget)) {
    $timeZoneTarget = date_default_timezone_get();
  }

  $dt = new DateTime($dateString, new DateTimeZone($timeZoneSource));
  $dt->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($timeZoneTarget));

  return $dt->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");
}

So, to convert to the server default, you would just pass one timezone:

changeTimeZone("2016-10-24 16:28", "Asia/Tokyo");

To convert from the server default to the user, you would leave the 2nd parameter null or blank:

changeTimeZone("2016-10-24 16:28", "", "Asia/Tokyo");

And to switch between 2 timezones unrelated to the default, you would provide 2 timezones:

changeTimeZone("2016-10-24 16:28", "America/New_York", "Asia/Tokyo");