php get US/Eastern current time

Question

I want to get current time of US/Eastern timezone. How would I achieve that.

I have tried following code but it is displaying my system's time.

<?php
   date_default_timezone_set('US/Eastern');
   $currenttime = date('h:i:s:u');
   list($hrs,$mins,$secs,$msecs) = split(':',$currenttime);
   //print "&time2=".$secs."&time1=".$mins."&time0=".$hrs;
?>

I am using this script with flash so commented out 'print' line.

Answer 1

<?php
   echo date_default_timezone_get();
   $currenttime = date('h:i:s:u');
   list($hrs,$mins,$secs,$msecs) = split(':',$currenttime);
   echo " => $hrs:$mins:$secs\n";

   date_default_timezone_set('US/Eastern');
   echo date_default_timezone_get();
   $currenttime = date('h:i:s:u');
   list($hrs,$mins,$secs,$msecs) = split(':',$currenttime);
   echo " => $hrs:$mins:$secs\n";

   date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
   echo date_default_timezone_get();
   $currenttime = date('h:i:s:u');
   list($hrs,$mins,$secs,$msecs) = split(':',$currenttime);
   echo " => $hrs:$mins:$secs\n";

?>

Seems to work here (in Berlin):

Europe/Berlin => 01:42:42
US/Eastern => 07:45:18
America/New_York => 07:45:18

Answer 2

$amNY = new DateTime('America/New_York');
$estTime = $amNY->format('h:i:s:u');

or if you are using php 5.4 and above

estTime = (new DateTime('America/New_York'))->format('h:i:s:u');

date_default_timezone_set() will affect the whole script and should be used carefully