PHP: does date have GMT offset?

[MacDonaldsd]

Hi all,

Im manipulating dates in PHP and then saving them for latter use in the GMT format.

(I will be using it in RSS in the format Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:22:00 GMT).

The problem is when you store a date you do not get the exact time in the summer as it is 1hour ahead so you have to put for example:

Sun, 1 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT -0100

Is there anyway of finding out using php whether daylight saving is in effect on the given date so the appropriate adjustment can be made ?

 

[angelwatt]

You can check if daylight savings is in effect. http://us3.php.net/gmdate Do a search for daylight on this page and you'll find an example. Essentially date("I"); will return 1 is daylight savings is current, 0 otherwise.

 

[MacDonaldsd]

Thanks for that but I have a problem it always returns 0

First is of each date is done using date()
Seconds using gmdate()


Jun 01 2008 00:00:00 0
Jun 01 2008 07:00:00 0

Jan 01 2008 00:00:00 0
Jan 01 2008 07:00:00 0

echo date("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 6, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 6, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo "<br/>";

echo date("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s I", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";

 

[angelwatt]

I ran your PHP and get,

Jun 01 2008 00:00:00 1
Jun 01 2008 04:00:00 0

Jan 01 2008 00:00:00 0
Jan 01 2008 05:00:00 0

So I'm getting thr correct results ... for whatever reason. Maybe it's a server setting then.

 

[MacDonaldsd]

I ran your PHP and get,

Jun 01 2008 00:00:00 1
Jun 01 2008 04:00:00 0

Jan 01 2008 00:00:00 0
Jan 01 2008 05:00:00 0

So I'm getting thr correct results ... for whatever reason. Maybe it's a server setting then.

Thanks I appreciate the help

I get my results both on my mac and on my go daddy hosting account, im surprised they both give incorrect values.

 

[angelwatt]

If you're using PHP 5 I found something for setting the default timezone. Not sure if it'll fix things, but might be worth a shot.

 

[MacDonaldsd]

If you're using PHP 5 I found something for setting the default timezone. Not sure if it'll fix things, but might be worth a shot.

yeah that works:

<?php
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');


echo date("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 6, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 6, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo "<br/>";

echo date("M d Y H:i:s I ", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s I", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2008));
echo "<br/>";
?>

Produces

Jun 01 2008 00:00:00 1
May 31 2008 23:00:00 0

Jan 01 2008 00:00:00 0
Jan 01 2008 00:00:00 0

Thanks for your help angelwatt