How to get local time in php?

Question

I am trying to get the local time using php. I wrote two different versions, but they both give the wrong time

date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$now = new DateTime();
echo $now->getTimestamp(); 

Another way

date_default_timezone_set('America/New York');
echo strtotime("now")."<br/>";;
$now = new DateTime();
echo $now->getTimestamp(); 

In both cases I get the time 4 fours ahead of my local time. There is any other way to get the local time?

Answer 1

DateTime::getTimestamp() returns unix timestamp. That number is always UTC. What you want is format the date according to your time zone.

$dt = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));

echo $dt->format('m/d/Y, H:i:s');

Or use a different date format, according to what you need.

Also, you can use DateTime library for all your date needs. No need to change server's default timezone every time you want to fetch the date.

Answer 2

Simply use function date_default_timezone_set(). Here is example:

<?php 
date_default_timezone_set("Asia/Dhaka");
echo date('d-m-Y h:i:s A');
?>

Hope it will help, Thanks.