PHP wrong date/time

Question

PHP date() & time() return incorrect time:

When date.timezone = "Europe/Riga" the time returned by date() was 03-12-2011 08:57:12, but system time was 03-12-2011 01:57:12 (timezone Europe/Riga - correct time at that moment). When I changed timezone to "Europe/London", the time changed to 03-12-2011 06:57:12 ( actual time 02-12-2011 23:57:12 )

Time returned by date / hwclock --show was correct (03-12-2011 01:57:12 with system timezone set as Riga)

OS: Debian 6.0

I have checked most of the questions regarding similar issues on SO/Google, but they all seem to have wrong timezone specified.

As far as I can tell there is problem between php -> os. Of course, because the incorrect time offset is always constant I could subtract difference, but it is not a proper solution.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

What are you using for your date() value? e.g. date('Y-m-d H:i:s') — Zoe Edwards
– Zoe Edwards, Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 0:21
What happens if you use DateTime class to determine the date, in conjunction with DateTimeZone? For example $d = new DateTime('', new DateTimeZone('Europe/Riga')); echo $d->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'); — N.B.
– N.B., Commented Dec 27, 2011 at 16:45

user813891 · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 00:39:35Z

23

Reading PHP manual seems that behaviour of date.timezone is affected by settings in php.ini. There is another way to set the default timezone in all date/time function and it's the date_default_timezone_set. Try to set it with:

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Riga');

instead of your date.timezone code.

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 0:39

user813891

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1 Comment

relic Over a year ago

Thanks. But I have already tried it without success. The fact that when I changed timezone from Riga to London, time difference was 2 hours suggests that timezone selection "works", but the problem is with the initial time value.

Arie Skliarouk · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-27 16:42:38Z

6

The problem looks similar to what I have seen on one of my servers. Looks to like bug in php 5.3.2-1. Try to run the php script in the bug report and post your results.

answered Dec 27, 2011 at 16:42

Arie Skliarouk

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1 Comment

ficuscr Over a year ago

Seems that was not an actual bug. The reporter simply had other code that was resetting the default timezone. So valid in the sense that you should watch for that. Beaware of code and .ini settings that can have impact.

user2317245 · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-24 20:25:36Z

3

The timezone of the system could be wrong. This results in a shift in a time given by the PHP date() function, althought both php date.timezone (in php.ini) and system time of the server are correct.

answered Apr 24, 2013 at 20:25

user2317245

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Comments

Piotr · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-05 13:03:42Z

1

I had some problem with timezone too. This can be handy for someone.

In my case, Chile Sumer Time CLST returned wrong timzeone offset.

Updating the timezonedb worked for me.

Go to: https://pecl.php.net/package/timezonedb

For Widnows Download the newest version of dll, copy into "ext" directory. Edit the php.ini and put below line:

extension=php_timezonedb.dll

For Linux You can use :

pecl install timezonedb

and in php.ini put:

extension=php_timezonedb.so

answered Apr 5, 2016 at 13:03

Piotr

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Turan Zamanlı · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-11 08:07:26Z

1

This comment for Azerbaijan timezone

I have problem with 'Asia/Baku' on php 7.2 or php 7.1 version.

I solved problem change to 'Europe/Baku'

answered Oct 11, 2018 at 8:07

Turan Zamanlı

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Mehdi Izcool · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-20 10:38:06Z

-2

You have to set date.timezone in php.ini and restart your server http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

answered Jan 20, 2016 at 10:38

Mehdi Izcool

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Álvaro González Over a year ago

This is exactly what the OP meant when he said date.timezone = "Europe/Riga" .

Eddie · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-02 02:00:10Z

-4

PHP time is based on epoch time scale which uses GMT and later UTC. Most people now refer to it as unix time. Because PHP uses unix time, timezones are not used. I believe subtracting the timezone hours in seconds is the correct method to adjust for the differences.

answered Apr 2, 2014 at 2:00

Eddie

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Álvaro González Over a year ago

Unix time is a simple count since a fixed moment in time—it's totally unaffected by time zones. Additionally, PHP has a pretty decent time zone handling; there's absolutely no reason to skip it and write your own.

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