Are there any best practices for handling date formats and locales in PHP applications like xtcommerce?

When handling date formats and locales in PHP applications like xtcommerce, it is important to ensure consistency and accuracy across different regions and languages. One best practice is to use the `setlocale()` function to set the desired locale for date formatting. Additionally, the `strftime()` function can be used to format dates according to the specified locale.

// Set the desired locale for date formatting
setlocale(LC_TIME, 'en_US.UTF-8');

// Format the current date according to the specified locale
$date = strftime('%A, %B %d, %Y');
echo $date;