Convert stored mysql DateTime of UTC datetime stamp into another time zone

[Justin Voelker]

Hello everyone:
I have seen posts like this one a couple times looking through this
group but I have yet to find a simple, elegant answer and I know there
must be one. I have a mysql database that has a datetime field in the
format Y-m-d H:i:s for the UTC time of a given post. If I am in the
eastern timezone I am currently at -5 hours from UTC so when I make my
post at 1:00pm eastern time, the time I see dispalyed on the page is
6:00pm because it is 6:00pm UTC. How can I take that UTC datetime
stamp and convert it to the correct datetime given a specific php
timezone such as America/New_York? I know there must be a simple way
to do this I just haven't been searching the right words or
something. Please help! Thank you!!!

[Jerry Stuckle]

Among other ways:

echo strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', strtotime('2008-12-02 20:50:00Z'));

or

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('2008-12-02 20:50:00Z'));

prints:

2008-12-02 15:50:00

(U.S. Eastern Standard Time)

(Note: the 'Z' at the end of the string is important - it means the
input is in Zulu (UTC) time).

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Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstu...@attglobal.net
==================

[Justin Voelker]

> jstuck...@attglobal.net
> ==================

Thank you Jerry:
I think that would work if the user selects a timezone and I set that
timezone on the website using date_default_timezone_set(). The
problem is, when I need to write a date/time back to the database, I
need to set the timezone back to UTC. Is there anything I can do to
convert on the fly rather than constantly switching back and forth
with the date_default_timezone_set() function?

[Jerry Stuckle]

php.net is your friend.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.gmstrftime.php

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.

jstu...@attglobal.net
==================