Function date_default_timezone_set() is not available

Question

As the title says, can anybody explain why the code

ini_set( 'date.timezone', 'Europe/Athens' );

works but

date_default_timezone_set( 'Europe/Athens' );

does not? It gives me this error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function date_default_timezone_set()

I was looking for a solution to convert a timestamp and all I could find on the web was to use date_default_timezone_set. But the conversion had always 1 hour difference.

Then I found this topic "strftime() function showing incorrect time" which is using the init_set code (and afterwards I've RTM and found out that it's already mentioned in the documentation). I tried it and it worked.

But I haven't found an answer why date_default_timezone_set is not working.

Can anybody explain please?

Answer 1

You must be using an old version of PHP.

date_default_timezone_set is for PHP 5.1.2 and above.

Try php -v and check your PHP version.