Easy PHP Projects: Time Zone Conversion

Build your PHP skills while solving real-world programming challenges. Learn how to make webpages time-zone sensitive and to build a PHP-driven time zone calculator.

Introduction

• Welcome
• How to use the exercise files

1. About Time Zones

• History
• UTC and time zone offsets
• Daylight saving time (DST)

2. Default Time Zone

• PHP time zone identifiers
• Set default in php.ini
• Set default at runtime

3. Working with Time Zones in PHP

• Understanding Unix time
• PHP procedural functions
• PHP DateTime
• PHP DateTimeZone
• DST transitions

4. User Time Zone Selection

• Create the form
• Add a time zone Selection-Option
• Include the time zone offset
• Improve offset formatting
• Store the time zone selection

5. Respect the User's Time Zone

• Display the current time
• Convert to user's time zone
• Challenge: Create a maintenance page
• Solution: Create a maintenance page
• Store dates in a database

6. Current World Times

• List time zones
• Challenge: Use major cities
• Solution: Use major cities
• Sort cities by offset
• More efficient sorting

7. Time Zone Calculator

• Create the form
• Time zone options function
• Convert the time zone
• Create date selectors
• Create minute selector
• Create hour selector
• Process date and time selections

Conclusion

• Next steps