How to Correctly Handle Timezones When Using timezone_open with strtotime

gitbox 2025-08-27

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<p>echo <span><span class="hljs-string">"<p>When working with dates and times in PHP, <code>strtotime()

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This ensures that regardless of the server’s default timezone, you get the correct Unix timestamp for Shanghai time.

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4. Alternative: Using date_default_timezone_set

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If you only want strtotime() to parse according to a specific timezone temporarily, you can change the default timezone first:

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date_default_timezone_set("Asia/Shanghai");<br>
$timestamp = strtotime("2025-08-26 14:30:00");<br>
echo $timestamp;<br>

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This method is simple, but it affects the global default timezone, so in large projects, using DateTime with DateTimeZone is recommended.

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Conclusion

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1. strtotime() uses the server or global default timezone by default.

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2. Use timezone_open() or DateTimeZone to create a timezone object and combine it with DateTime for precise handling of dates and times in a specific timezone.

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3. Temporarily changing the default timezone can also solve the problem but may impact the global environment.

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Mastering these methods allows you to handle cross-timezone dates and times correctly and safely in PHP.