What are the best practices for handling timestamps and date comparisons in PHP?

Handling timestamps and date comparisons in PHP requires careful consideration of timezones and formatting to ensure accurate results. It is recommended to always store timestamps in UTC format to avoid timezone conversion issues. When comparing dates, use PHP's DateTime class along with the appropriate timezone settings to ensure accurate comparisons. 

// Store timestamps in UTC format
$timestamp = strtotime('2022-01-01 12:00:00 UTC');

// Compare dates using DateTime class with timezone settings
$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-02', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

if ($date1 < $date2) {
    echo "Date 1 is before Date 2";
} else {
    echo "Date 1 is after Date 2";
}

Keywords

timestamps date comparisons PHP functions libraries error types

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