Is it considered a best practice in PHP to handle time conversions directly in SQL queries instead of in PHP scripts?

It is generally considered a best practice to handle time conversions directly in SQL queries instead of in PHP scripts. This approach can improve performance by utilizing the database's built-in functions for date and time manipulation. It also ensures consistency in time zone conversions across different parts of the application. 

// Example of handling time conversion in SQL query
$query = "SELECT DATE_FORMAT(CONVERT_TZ(created_at, 'UTC', 'America/New_York'), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s') AS converted_created_at FROM table_name";
$result = $mysqli->query($query);

while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    echo $row['converted_created_at'];
}

Keywords

PHP SQL queries time conversions datetime functions performance.

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