DateTime::setTimezone

date_timezone_set

(PHP 5 >= 5.2.0)

DateTime::setTimezone -- date_timezone_set — Sets the time zone for the DateTime object

Description

Object oriented style

public DateTime DateTime::setTimezone ( DateTimeZone $timezone )

Procedural style

DateTime date_timezone_set ( DateTime $object , DateTimeZone $timezone )

Parameters

object: Procedural style only: A DateTime object returned by date_create(). The function modifies this object.
timezone: A DateTimeZone object representing the desired time zone.

Return Values

Returns the DateTime object for method chaining or FALSE on failure.

Changelog

Version	Description
5.3.0	Changed the return value on success from `NULL` to DateTime.

Examples

Example #1 DateTime::setTimeZone() example

Object oriented style


<?php
$date = new DateTime('2000-01-01', new DateTimeZone('Pacific/Nauru'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";

$date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Pacific/Chatham'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";
?>

Procedural style


<?php
$date = date_create('2000-01-01', timezone_open('Pacific/Nauru'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";

date_timezone_set($date, timezone_open('Pacific/Chatham'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";
?>

The above examples will output:

2000-01-01 00:00:00+12:00
2000-01-01 01:45:00+13:45


I found unexpected behaviour when passing a timestamp.

timezone seems to always be GMT+0000 unless setTimezone() is set.



<?php



$MNTTZ = new DateTimeZone('America/Denver');

$ts = 1336476757;



$dt = new DateTime("@$ts", $MNTTZ);

var_dump($dt->format('T'), $dt->format('U'));



$dt->setTimezone($MNTTZ);

var_dump($dt->format('T'), $dt->format('U'));



/** Output:

string(8) "GMT+0000"

string(10) "1336476757"

string(3) "MDT"

string(10) "1336476757"

**/



?>

down

keithm at aoeex dot com ¶

3 years ago


The timestamp value represented by the DateTime object is not modified when you set the timezone using this method.  Only the timezone, and thus the resulting display formatting, is affected.



This can be seen using the following test code:

<?php

$MNTTZ = new DateTimeZone('America/Denver');

$ESTTZ = new DateTimeZone('America/New_York');



$dt = new DateTime('11/24/2009 2:00 pm', $MNTTZ);

var_dump($dt->format(DATE_RFC822), $dt->format('U'));

$dt->setTimezone($ESTTZ);

var_dump($dt->format(DATE_RFC822), $dt->format('U'));



/** Output:

string(29) "Tue, 24 Nov 09 14:00:00 -0700"

string(10) "1259096400"

string(29) "Tue, 24 Nov 09 16:00:00 -0500"

string(10) "1259096400"

**/

?>



As such, you can use this to easily convert between timezones for display purposes.

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