How do I get a date in UK local time using PHP?

Question

I'm using the unix timestamp to show when a message was posted in my project but when I came to displaying the exact time of the post I realized it was about 12 hours behind.

I'm in the UK and my server is in the US (might be the problem).

Is there a simple way of converting the unix timestamp into a readable British time?

$timestamp = time();
print date("F jS, Y", strtotime($timestamp));

Any help would be great, Thanks!

Please stop writing tags in your question titles. You've done it with almost all of your questions. — Lightness Races in Orbit, Apr 24 '11 at 20:22
Sorry Tom, didn't realize that was a problem. Thanks for the tip. — , Apr 24 '11 at 20:23
Use my solution that is very clear and easy. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11176502/php-get-uk-local-time-from-server-in-different-time-zone/70781686#70781686 — pankaj, Jan 20 '22 at 06:29

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

4

At the top of your script, write:

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

Or if your PHP is >= 5.2.0:

date_timezone_set('Europe/London');

answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

Lightness Races in Orbit

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this is in complete solution – pankaj Jan 20 '22 at 06:19

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

2

Just call date_timezone_set with the appropriate parameter for the UK at the start of your script when displaying the dates (not when recording them; I 'm not sure, but it might result in the "wrong" timestamps being recorded).

Edit: The timezone you want is 'Europe/London'.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

Jon

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I hope not. Otherwise any script running outside of GMT is in big trouble. – Lightness Races in Orbit Apr 24 '11 at 20:24
@TomalakGeret'kal: I don't quite get your meaning. I was thinking that the behavior would be dependent on the system clock going with UTC time vs. the local time. In the second case only PHP would need to convert from local to UTC to get a timestamp; therefore setting the "wrong" local timezone would result in a wrong TS. I might be wrong though. – Jon Apr 24 '11 at 20:26
Depends what he's doing, I guess. – Lightness Races in Orbit Apr 24 '11 at 20:29

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 12 '18 at 15:28

2

try date-default-timezone-set.

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

edited Feb 12 '18 at 15:28

Alexander Wigmore

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answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:23

cweinberger

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:25

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Use date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London'); to set the time zone to London's time. Not sure if it works with summer/winter time.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:25

Alexandre Cassagne

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score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 14 '19 at 09:54

0

This one worked for me

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

edited May 14 '19 at 09:54

Szabolcs Páll

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answered May 14 '19 at 08:04

jocar

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

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the simplies way is to substruct gmt offset. e.g:

echo(date('Y-m-d h:i'), $myvalue - 60 * 60 * $nhours));

where $nhours - time defference in hours.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 20:22

heximal

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Sure, if you want to write this mess every single time you want to work with a date. – Lightness Races in Orbit Apr 24 '11 at 20:23
your solution does not work... – pankaj Jan 20 '22 at 06:23

How do I get a date in UK local time using PHP?

6 Answers6