How can the time difference calculation in PHP be improved to avoid unexpected results?

When calculating time differences in PHP, it's important to consider time zones to avoid unexpected results. One way to improve the time difference calculation is to explicitly set the time zones for the dates being compared using the DateTime class and specifying the time zone using the DateTimeZone class. 

$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01 12:00:00', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-01 15:00:00', new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));

$interval = $date1->diff($date2);

echo $interval->format('%H:%I:%S');

Keywords

DateTime date_diff timezone daylight saving time timestamp

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