Parsing a datetime string with timezone in PHP

Question

I have a string in this format: 2013-07-31T19:20:30.45-07:00 and I want to parse it so that I can, for example, say what day of the week it is. But I'm struggling to cope with the timezone offset. If I do date_parse("2013-07-31T19:20:30.45-07:00") then I end up with something like this:

array(15) {
  ["year"]=> int(2013)
  ["month"]=> int(7)
  ["day"]=> int(31)
  ["hour"]=> int(19)
  ["minute"]=> int(20)
  ["second"]=> int(30)
  ["fraction"]=> float(0.45)
  ["warning_count"]=> int(0)
  ["warnings"]=> array(0) { }
  ["error_count"]=> int(0)
  ["errors"]=> array(0) { }
  ["is_localtime"]=> bool(true)
  ["zone_type"]=> int(1)
  ["zone"]=> int(420)
  ["is_dst"]=> bool(false)
}

It's done something with the timezone, but what do I do with 420 if I want to, for example, show information about the timezone?

In case it matters, I have previously set my default timezone using date_default_timezone_set('UTC').

UPDATE: If the string has a positive timezone, eg 2013-07-31T19:20:30.45+07:00 then the last part of the date_parse() output is:

  ["is_localtime"]=> bool(true)
  ["zone_type"]=> int(1)
  ["zone"]=> int(-420)
  ["is_dst"]=> bool(false)
}

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

1

420 is zone in minutes.

420/60 = 7

I want to parse it so that I can, for example, say what day of the week it is.

If you want to know what day of the week it is, you have many options. For example you can use date and mktime-functions:

$parsed = date_parse("2013-07-31T19:20:30.45-07:00");
$unix_timestamp = mktime($parsed['hour'], 0, 0, $parsed['month'], $parsed['day'], $parsed['year'], (int)$parsed['is_dst']);

echo date('l', $unix_timestamp);

So you want to show the information about timezone? You can get the time zone name by using timezone_name_from_abbr function:

$name = timezone_name_from_abbr("", -1*$parsed['zone']*60, false); // NB: Offset in seconds! 
var_dump($name);

$timezone = new DateTimezone($name); 
var_dump($timezone);

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 11:05

iiro

3,1381 gold badge22 silver badges23 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Phil Gyford Over a year ago

I hadn't even clocked that the zone might be minutes! I've added an example with positive timezone... It seems to me like the zone is the opposite of what I'd expect...?

iiro Over a year ago

Ok, you can forget the zone_type-field in this case. Time zone offset can be 15, 30 or 60 minutes.

Phil Gyford Over a year ago

Great, thank you! It's been ages since I've done much PHP and I'd managed to largely avoid timezones when I was last doing it.

avatarofhope2 Mar 5 at 23:27

In php 8.3.6, it appears that zone is an offset in seconds rather than minutes.

Halcyon · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 11:11:51Z

0

2013-07-31T19:20:30.45-07:00
^ y-m-d    ^ time      ^ timezone offset

I'm guessing the timezone is -7 hours from UTC.

Keep in mind that some countries have half-hour timezones, or even minute timezones. This is probably why you get the timezone in minutes.

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 11:11

Halcyon

57.7k10 gold badges93 silver badges131 bronze badges

1 Comment

Phil Gyford Over a year ago

Thanks - I hadn't even realised that the 420 was minutes!

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Parsing a datetime string with timezone in PHP

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related