How to convert server time to local time in Laravel?

Question

I would like to print the time in local time in Laravel. If the user create a post it will display the created time on the server. How can I display it in local time ?

In my blade file I used this code to display created time,

{{{ $posts->updated_at }}}

Which displays the time in database, which is a server time. How can I convert it to users local time ?

Answer 1

I found a solution to convert time to local time by using session. The current time zone offset will store on session to calculate users time. Create a jquery post function to post users timezone offset to session. This is my code,

default.blade.php

@if($current_time_zone=Session::get('current_time_zone'))@endif
<input type="hidden" id="hd_current_time_zone" value="{{{$current_time_zone}}}">
// For assigning session value to hidden field. 

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function(){
      if($('#hd_current_time_zone').val() ==""){ // Check for hidden field is empty. if is it empty only execute the post function
          var current_date = new Date();
          curent_zone = -current_date.getTimezoneOffset() * 60;
          var token = "{{csrf_token()}}";
          $.ajax({
            method: "POST",
            url: "{{URL::to('ajax/set_current_time_zone/')}}",
            data: {  '_token':token, curent_zone: curent_zone } 
          }).done(function( data ){
        });   
      }       
});

routes.php

Route::post('ajax/set_current_time_zone', array('as' => 'ajaxsetcurrenttimezone','uses' => 'HomeController@setCurrentTimeZone'));

HomeController.php

public function setCurrentTimeZone(){ //To set the current timezone offset in session
    $input = Input::all();
    if(!empty($input)){
        $current_time_zone = Input::get('curent_zone');
        Session::put('current_time_zone',  $current_time_zone);
    }
}

Helpers/helper.php

function niceShort($attr) {
    if(Session::has('current_time_zone')){
       $current_time_zone = Session::get('current_time_zone');
       $utc = strtotime($attr)-date('Z'); // Convert the time zone to GMT 0. If the server time is what ever no problem.

       $attr = $utc+$current_time_zone; // Convert the time to local time
       $attr = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", $attr);
    }
    return attr;
}

index.blade.php

{{ niceShort($posts->updated_at) }}

Now we can print the time in clients time zone. The time zone setting code run only when the session empty.

Answer 2

You can do this by using javascript. Use following libraries:

1. moment.min.js (http://momentjs.com/downloads/moment.js)
2. moment-timezone-with-data.js ()
3. jstz.min.js (https://bitbucket.org/pellepim/jstimezonedetect)

Here is the code :

var update_at = '<?php echo $posts->updated_at;?>'; //set js variable for updated_at
var serverTimezone = 'YOUR SERVER TIME ZONE'; //set js variable for server timezone
var momentJsTimeObj = moment.tz(update_at, serverTimezone); //create moment js time object for server time
var localTimeZone = jstz.determine(); //this will fetch user's timezone
var localTime = momentJsTimeObj.clone().tz(localTimeZone.name()).format(); //convert server time to local time of user

Now you can display local time through js