👀 Views: 70 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-20

php datetime timezone daylightsavingtime PHP

I'm having a hard time understanding I'm reviewing some code and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm working with an scenario with PHP 8.2 where the `DateTime::setTimeZone()` method behaves unexpectedly when dealing with daylight saving time changes... I have a scenario where I need to convert a UTC time to a local time zone that observes DST. Here's the relevant code snippet: ```php $date = new DateTime('2023-03-12 10:00:00', new DateTimeZone('UTC')); // DST starts in many regions on this date $date->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone('America/New_York')); ``` After executing this, I expected the output to reflect the local time after the DST change, which should be 6:00 AM EST, but instead, I get 5:00 AM EDT. This is surprising since the timestamp I'm using falls on the day when DST starts, and I thought PHP would automatically adjust the time correctly based on the time zone change. I've tried debugging by checking the output of `var_dump($date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s T'))`, and it shows the time as '2023-03-12 05:00:00 EDT', which is correct for the local time but wrong given the expected original UTC time. I'm using the following PHP settings: ```ini date.timezone = "UTC" ``` I also checked if the system’s time zone settings are correct, and they seem fine as the server is set to UTC. Is there a specific way I should be handling time zones when working with daylight saving transitions in PHP? Any guidance would be appreciated! My development environment is Ubuntu. I'm working with Php in a Docker container on Ubuntu 22.04. I'm open to any suggestions.