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Posted by Daz on 02/11/07 13:19
On Feb 11, 3:15 am, ljb <lba...@pobox.com.delete.this> wrote:
> cutenfu...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Hi everyone. I know this question sounds stupid, but it's been
> > plaguing me, and as I can't seem to find the answer, and can't afford
> > to wait until the end of March for DST to kick into effect, I thought
> > I should ask here.
>
> If you are in US or Canada, and your -0800 offset implies that, that would
> be 2nd Sunday in March, not end of March. Just so you know. (And spelling
> 'utilise' implies Canada, I guess. Someplace like Vancouver?)
It's -0500, not -0800 :)
>
> > On my server, when I do:
>
> > echo date("0", mktime());
>
> > I get -0500. This suggests to me that the server is 5 hours behind GMT/
> > UTC time.
>
> Assuming the server's timezone is set correctly, it is perhaps in east
> coast US, eastern Canada, or even western South America. (FYI that's "O"
> letter Oh, not "0" zero.) You could print out date('T') to see the timezone
> name, or even better with PHP>=5.1 date('e') to see the descriptive name.
>
> > When I do:
>
> > echo gmdate("0", mktime());
>
> > I get +0000 , which is correct. However, the time I get is 1 hour 1
> > minute and 52 seconds ahead of what the actual GMT time is.
>
> That's odd. How did you get that time?
> If it was just 1 min 52 seconds, I would say the server time is
> unsynchronized (assuming your time is accurate). But I don't understand
> the hour. If that's really the server's GMT time, that would be bad.
I did echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s", mktime());
And the time is an hour ahead of my PC clock, which is in the UK and
synchronised. Just in case, I checked out http://
wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/ which displays the correct GMT, which
displays the same time as my PC clock (to the second).
>
> > Does this mean that the locale is wrong, or would I simply subtract
> > and hour from the supposed GMT and get on with it?
>
> Locale has nothing to do with it. The server's timezone setting is
> used to produce local time. UTC (GMT) is UTC no matter what.
> I would probably ask the server/hosting company what's up there.
I did exactly that. I asked them to look into it, they said they
would, and never got back to me. Heh. They are usually pretty good, so
I will give them a kick in the butt.
>
> > The question that's plaguing me, is will the time leap forward on the
> > last Sunday of March, and would it be affected by whether or not the
> > country that the server is in conforms to DST?
>
> UTC doesn't change. Local time is subject to the timezone setting; that
> would default to the server's timezone or your scripts can set it.
> If the selected timezone includes a DST change, local time changes.
> In most of US and Canada, local time jumps 1 hour on March 11, 2007.
Oh, I see. Excellent. It makes complete sense now.
>
> > I need to utilise a constant time (UTC), so I can tweak my script, and
> > never have to worry about different timezones and DST, but I am not
> > sure if I am doing it the right way.
>
> > I would appreciate it if someone could point out where I might be
> > going wrong (if anywhere), or whether it sounds like the server
> > locales are set incorrectly from what I have tried to explain.
>
> What I recommend you need to be sure this all works:
> 1. Your server O/S needs up-to-date timezone data (if Linux or Unix),
> or Microsoft patches (if Windows). Less important for PHP>=5.1
> which has its own timezone database, I think.
Ironically enough, I switched over to PHP 5 yeasterday. The settings
take about 15 minutes to propagate, and I never went back and checked
it then. I just checked it now, and my Control Panel says I am running
PHP 5.1, but running:
php -version
at the command line, reveals I am still running php 4.4.2. I'll get
them to look into that.
I just logged in, and when I do 'date' at the CL, I get: Sun Feb 11
08:41:14 EST 2007
For my PC (Linux), I get: Sun Feb 11 12:38:17 UTC 2007
That means the server time is actually -0400, not -0500 like PHP says.
This is so confusing...
Also, both dates were taken within 0.5 seconds of oneanother.
> 2. Your server's time should be synchronized with NTP. Should go without
> saying, but sometimes ignored, sadly.
Yeah, I think I am going to speak to my host about that.
> 3. Use an up-to-date PHP version like 5.2.0.
Hmmm. I think we only have 4, 5 or 5.1 available for grabs at the
moment. Can you confirm it's safe, and backwards compatible. I heard
there were some problems in the past, but I don't know if they were
rumours, or if the problems have been fixed or not. Either way, I
didn't want to take the chance with my Web site.
> 4. Your timezone should be set to match your (or your users) timezone - not
> necessarily the server's timezone. If you control the server's php.ini,
> set it there with "date.timezone". If not, then set it in your scripts with
> date_default_timezone_set(). (These are for PHP 5.1 and up, I think.)
You are right. Thank you very much for your input. I am pretty certain
now that there is a problem with the server. :)
Daz.
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