PHP date() with timezone?

So I've checked the list of supported time zones in PHP and I was wondering how could I include them in the date() function? Thanks!

I don't want a default timezone, each user has their timezone stored in the database, I take that timezone of the user and use it. How? I know how to take it from the database, not how to use it, though.

For such task, you should really be using PHP's DateTime class. Please ignore all of the answers advising you to use date() or date_set_time_zone, it's simply bad and outdated.

I'll use pseudocode to demonstrate, so try to adjust the code to suit your needs.

Assuming that variable $tz contains string name of a valid time zone and variable $timestamp contains the timestamp you wish to format according to time zone, the code would look like this:

$tz = 'Europe/London';
$timestamp = time();
$dt = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone($tz)); //first argument "must" be a string
$dt->setTimestamp($timestamp); //adjust the object to correct timestamp
echo $dt->format('d.m.Y, H:i:s');

DateTime class is powerful, and to grasp all of its capabilities - you should devote some of your time reading about it at php.net. To answer your question fully - yes, you can adjust the time zone parameter dynamically (on each iteration while reading from db, you can create a new DateTimeZone() object).

If I understood correct,You need to set time zone first like:

date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

And than you can use date function:

// Prints something like: Monday 8th of August 2005 03:12:46 PM
echo date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A');

Use the DateTime class instead, as it supports timezones. The DateTime equivalent of date() is DateTime::format.

An extremely helpful wrapper for DateTime is Carbon - definitely give it a look.

You'll want to store in the database as UTC and convert on the application level.

The answer above caused me to jump through some hoops/gotchas, so just posting the cleaner code that worked for me:

$dt = new DateTime();
$dt->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));
$dt->setTimestamp(123456789);

echo $dt->format('F j, Y @ G:i');

It should like this:

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

U can just add, timezone difference to unix timestamp. Example for Moscow (UTC+3)

echo date('d.m.Y H:i:s', time() + 3 * 60 * 60);

this works perfectly in 2019:

date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime($date. ' '.$timezone)); 

Try this. You can pass either unix timestamp, or datetime string

public static function convertToTimezone($timestamp, $fromTimezone, $toTimezone, $format='Y-m-d H:i:s') 
    {
        $datetime = is_numeric($timestamp) ?
                    DateTime::createFromFormat ('U' , $timestamp, new DateTimeZone($fromTimezone)) :
                    new DateTime($timestamp, new DateTimeZone($fromTimezone));
        
        $datetime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($toTimezone));

        return $datetime->format($format);
    }

I have created this very straightforward function, and it works like a charm:

function ts2time($timestamp,$timezone){ /* input: 1518404518,America/Los_Angeles */            
        $date = new DateTime(date("d F Y H:i:s",$timestamp));
        $date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($timezone));
        $rt=$date->format('M d, Y h:i:s a'); /* output: Feb 11, 2018 7:01:58 pm */
        return $rt;
    }

Not mentioned above. You could also crate a DateTime object by providing a timestamp as string in the constructor with a leading @ sign.

$dt = new DateTime('@123456789');
$dt->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));
echo $dt->format('F j, Y - G:i');

See the documentation about compound formats: https://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.compound.php

I have tried the answers based on the DateTime class. While they are working, I found a much simpler solution that makes a DateTime object timezone aware at the time of creation.

$dt = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone('Asia/Jakarta'));
echo $dt->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");

This returns the current local time in Jakarta, Indonesia.

If you use Team EJ's answer, using T in the format string for DateTime will display a three-letter abbreviation, but you can get the long name of the timezone like this:

$date = new DateTime('2/3/2022 02:11:17');
$date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/Chicago'));

echo "\n" . $date->format('Y-m-d h:i:s T');
/* Displays 2022-02-03 02:11:17 CST "; */

$t = $date->getTimezone();
echo "\nTimezone: " . $t->getName();
/* Displays Timezone: America/Chicago */

$now = new DateTime();
$now->format('d-m-Y H:i:s T')

Will output:

29-12-2021 12:38:15 UTC

Based on other answers I built a one-liner, where I suppose you need current date time. It's easy to adjust if you need a different timestamp.

$dt = (new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone('Europe/Rome')))->format('d-m-Y_His');

You can replace database value in date_default_timezone_set function, date_default_timezone_set(SOME_PHP_VARIABLE); but just needs to take care of exact values relevant to the timezones.