Are there any best practices for converting times to timestamps in PHP to accurately calculate time differences?

When converting times to timestamps in PHP, it's important to ensure that the time zone is set correctly to accurately calculate time differences. One best practice is to use the DateTime class along with the setTimeZone() method to handle time zone conversions. By converting times to timestamps using the DateTime class, you can easily calculate time differences with precision.

// Set the time zone
date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

// Convert times to timestamps
$startTime = strtotime('2022-01-01 08:00:00');
$endTime = strtotime('2022-01-01 10:30:00');

// Calculate time difference
$timeDifference = $endTime - $startTime;

echo "Time difference: " . gmdate("H:i:s", $timeDifference);