Convert UTC/GMT or any time zone to local time in PHP

Wrangling dates and times can be a somewhat arduous task for all programmers. One very common requirement is to convert a time from one time zone to another.

In PHP this is greatly simplified with the DateTime standard library classes and especially DateTimeZone.

For this example let us assume we have a UTC date and time string (2011-04-27 02:45) that we would like to convert to ACST (Australian Central Standard Time).

<?php
$utc_date = DateTime::createFromFormat(
    'Y-m-d G:i',
    '2011-04-27 02:45',
    new DateTimeZone('UTC')
);

$acst_date = clone $utc_date; // we don't want PHP's default pass object by reference here
$acst_date->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone('Australia/Yancowinna'));

echo 'UTC:  ' . $utc_date->format('Y-m-d g:i A');  // UTC:  2011-04-27 2:45 AM
echo 'ACST: ' . $acst_date->format('Y-m-d g:i A'); // ACST: 2011-04-27 12:15 PM

After some experimentation between time zones that do and do not currently have DST (Day Light Savings Time) I have discovered that this will take DST into account.

Anyway a very simple tip for moving dates around in PHP.