default timezone

[Dmitriy]

Hey, Scott

What PHP version we're talking about? I presume PHP5...

You can try also using
bool date_default_timezone_set ( string $timezone_identifier )

Timezones list: PHP: List of timezones in the group America - Manual
Documentation on your issue: PHP: date_default_timezone_set - Manual

However, I'd suggest saving all date\time value in UTC & than add timezone offset before the output. This is better than to write to users from Japan that all times are UTC -6 or something like that.

Let me know how it goes

[Scott]

Alright, I got the php part to work but I am now having trouble with MySQL now().

Here is the code that I have so far:

 echo "<p>PHP 1: ".date("Y-m-d h:i:s")."</p>"; // outputs system time, ok

$q = "select now()";
$r = mysql_query($q);
$d = mysql_fetch_assoc($r);
echo "<p>MySQL 1: ".$d['now()']."</p>"; // outputs system time, ok

putenv("TZ=America/Chicago"); // change php timezone
echo "<p>PHP 2: ".date("Y-m-d h:i:s")."</p>"; // outputs my timezone, ok

$q = "select now()";
$r = mysql_query($q);
$d = mysql_fetch_assoc($r);
echo "<p>MySQL 2: ".$d['now()']."</p>"; // outputs system time, didn't expect this to work for my timezone but why not try

$q = "set time_zone = '-5:00'"; // change mysql timezone
$r = mysql_query($q);

$q = "select now()";
$r = mysql_query($q);
$d = mysql_fetch_assoc($r);
echo "<p>MySQL 3: ".$d['now()']."</p>"; // outputs my timezone, ok 
  

Per the MySQL docs, I should be able to tell MySQL the timezone that I am in by name, so instead of writing:

 $q = "set time_zone = '-5:00'"; 
  

I should be able to write:

 $q = "set time_zone = 'America/Chicago'"; 
  

or:

 $q = "set time_zone = 'US/Central'"; 
  

However, both of those attempts when using names fail and MySQL complains about them.

Per MySQL doc:
Named time zones can be used only if the time zone information tables in the mysql database have been created and populated.

Can we get these tables loaded or is there another solution to get now() to work as expected?

[Scott]

No takers?
Am I the only one with this issue?
What are others doing to work around this?