What are the best practices for handling date calculations in PHP scripts?

When handling date calculations in PHP scripts, it is important to use the DateTime class to ensure accurate and reliable results. This class provides a wide range of methods for manipulating dates, such as adding or subtracting days, months, or years. By using this class, you can avoid common pitfalls like leap year calculations and daylight saving time adjustments.

// Example of adding 1 month to a given date
$startDate = new DateTime('2022-01-15');
$startDate->modify('+1 month');
$newDate = $startDate->format('Y-m-d');
echo $newDate; // Output: 2022-02-15