PHP Timezone Name to Offset

Question

How would I go about converting a timezone name ("Asia/Dubai", "Europe/Andorra", etc) to a GMT offset in hours (or even seconds, since I can convert it from there).

Most people ask for the reverse, but I need to get a timezone offset from the timezone name provided by GeoNames.

This doesn't directly answer your question, but may solve your problem. Looks like you can query GeoNames directly for the offset, like this: http://api.geonames.org/timezoneJSON?lat=47.01&lng=10.2 — Ben Lee, Jan 18 '11 at 19:56
Yeah, I am actually using GeoNames as a primary. The main problem is that they are currently overloaded, so I am trying to have a backup for when they are. — Andrew M, Jan 18 '11 at 19:59
Possible duplicate of [UTC Offset in PHP](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/193499/utc-offset-in-php) — HMagdy, Oct 11 '18 at 18:16

score 51 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 09 '13 at 17:08

51

you can use the following

<?php

$timezone = 'Pacific/Nauru';
$time = new \DateTime('now', new DateTimeZone($timezone));
$timezoneOffset = $time->format('P');
?>

edited Dec 09 '13 at 17:08

cloakedninjas

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answered Jan 18 '11 at 19:58

Cecil Zorg

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have a look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php to output in seconds – Cecil Zorg Jan 18 '11 at 20:01
Works perfectly when changing "new dateTime" to "new DateTime" and "time()" to "'now'". Thanks! – Andrew M Jan 18 '11 at 20:11
1

Or just do `$time->getOffset()` to output in integer seconds – SenTisso Apr 08 '21 at 22:15

score 26 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '11 at 22:33

26

Another option would be to use the available DateTimeZone::getOffset() method, which returns the offset in seconds for the time zone at the specified date/time.

$timezone = new DateTimeZone("Europe/Andorra");
$offset   = $timezone->getOffset(new DateTime);

answered Jan 18 '11 at 22:33

salathe

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I prefer this answer because it gives me the seconds. As opposed to `format('P')` which returns `hh:mm` format. – hpaknia Nov 21 '18 at 06:39

score 15 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 05 '15 at 02:29

15

I like using PHP Carbon:

$offset = Carbon::now('Europe/Andorra')->offsetHours;

answered Jun 05 '15 at 02:29

mopo922

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PHP Timezone Name to Offset

3 Answers3