timezone - 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) return the date in UTC.

I then have it so a given web site can select its timezone. Now I want dates to display in the site's timezone. So, if I have a date stored as '2009-04-01 15:36:13', it should display for a user in the PDT timezone (-7 hours) as '2009-04-01 08:36:13'.

What is the easiest (least code) method for doing this via PHP? So far all I've thought of is

date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime($Site->getUTCOffset() . ' hours', strtotime(date($utcDate))));

Is there a shorter way?

Answer 1

Why not use the built in DateTime/TimeZone functionality?

<?php

$mysqlDate = '2009-04-01 15:36:13';

$dateTime = new DateTime ($mysqlDate);
$dateTime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/Los_Angeles'));

?>

DateTime Class: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/class.datetime.php DateTimeZone Class: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/class.datetimezone.php

PHP's supported Timezones: http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php