What are some common pitfalls or challenges developers may face when working with date and time functions like strftime in PHP, and how can they be mitigated?

One common pitfall when working with date and time functions like strftime in PHP is not properly handling timezones, which can lead to inaccurate date/time calculations. To mitigate this issue, always set the correct timezone before performing any date/time operations.

// Set the timezone to UTC before using strftime
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

// Use strftime with the correct format and timezone
echo strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S');