What are the best practices for handling timestamps in PHP to ensure accurate date comparisons and avoid manual adjustments each year?

When handling timestamps in PHP, it is best to use the DateTime class along with the appropriate timezone settings to ensure accurate date comparisons and avoid manual adjustments each year. By setting the timezone explicitly, PHP will handle daylight saving time changes automatically, making your code more reliable and easier to maintain. 

// Set the timezone to your desired location
date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

// Create DateTime objects for comparison
$timestamp1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01');
$timestamp2 = new DateTime('2022-12-31');

// Compare the timestamps
if ($timestamp1 < $timestamp2) {
    echo 'Timestamp 1 is before Timestamp 2';
} else {
    echo 'Timestamp 2 is before Timestamp 1';
}

Keywords

timestamps date comparisons PHP accurate manual adjustments

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