In PHP, what are the implications of directly manipulating timestamps for date calculations and comparisons?

Directly manipulating timestamps for date calculations and comparisons can lead to errors due to differences in time zones, daylight saving time changes, and leap years. It is recommended to use PHP's built-in DateTime class to handle date calculations and comparisons as it takes care of these complexities automatically.

// Using DateTime class for date calculations and comparisons
$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-15');
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-20');

// Calculate the difference in days between two dates
$interval = $date1->diff($date2);
echo $interval->days;